Cingular turns on HSDPA in three markets

Cingular today said it has upgraded its base stations in three of its six existing UMTS networks with high-speed downlink packet access software and hardware, allowing the operator to claim it has the first commercial HSDPA network in the world. Cingular revealed today Lucent Technologies and Ericsson have completed the HSDPA installation in Seattle, Phoenix and Dallas/Fort Worth.

There’s one slight problem, though. Cingular doesn’t yet have any HSDPA terminals, so none of Cingular’s customers can access the enhanced data speeds--expected to be between 400 kb/s to 700 kb/s. However, its current UMTS handsets and data cards sold originally by AT&T Wireless will continue to work on the three networks at normal UMTS speeds of 200 kb/s to 320 kb/s.

Cingular plans to rectify that situation soon. In a recent interview, Chief Technology Officer Kris Rinne laid out Cingular’s UMTS and HSDPA plans. She said that as Cingular turns up nine to 14 new UMTS markets this quarter, they would all have the HSDPA upgrade installed. While volume HSDPA chipsets are not yet shipping, Cingular will have HSDPA-ready PC cards from Novatel and Sierra Wireless. The first handsets will be UMTS only, and Cingular is currently evaluating phones from Samsung, Nokia and LG Electronics for commercial launch, Rinne said.

“We’re currently undergoing the optimization phase for UMTS,” Rinne said. “Right now we’re in device acceptance. We’ll start with UMTS handsets, but we’ll move fairly quickly to HSDPA.”

Later in 2006, Cingular will start selling its first HSDPA handsets, which will contain an early release of the HSDPA chipsets, supporting network data speeds of 1.8 Mb/s. The HSDPA standard has 12 separate categories, the 10th iteration of which supports HSDPA’s full theoretical capacity of 14.4 Mb/s. As handsets and PC cards from later category releases become available, Cingular will release them, creating the highest-capacity 3G network in the U.S., Rinne said.

Rinne was quick to point out, however, Cingular’s intention is not to dole out multi-megabits of capacity to individual customers. It is trying to increase the overall capacity of the network, allowing it to fit more 3G customers onto a single carrier and still maintain broadband speeds.

The strategy will allow Cingular to add capacity to the network without committing more spectrum. As more customers sign up for the service and upgrade to faster chipset-devices, network speeds will grow in tandem. Cingular currently has 10 MHz designated for each of its planned 3G markets--5 MHz for the uplink and another 5 MHz for the reverse. By pushing capacity upwards through the different permutations of HSDPA, Cingular hopes to minimize any need to designate new PCS spectrum for UMTS for several years.

“We see those 10 MHz carrying us until the 2008/2009 timeframe,” Rinne said.

Cingular on Monday announced plans to build an IMS platform for its 3G network. Using Lucent gear, Cingular plans to create a services-oriented architecture, which will allow it to easily develop and launch new blended multimedia services for its UMTS customers.