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December 17, 2004

DoCoMo Shows Path from 384 Kbps to 1 Gbps

By Glenn Fleishman

DoCoMo hits 1 Gbps with new acronyms: Just when WNN (that’s Nancy and myself) are deciphering the HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) third-generation (3G) cellular standard that will top out a 14 Mbps, DoCoMo throws us a 1 Gbps 4G set of letters: VSF-Spread OFDM with MIMO. Oy.

The HSDPA standard is the next step from a few hundred Kbps download and much less upload speed found on DoCoMo and other 3G networks around the world. HSDPA should appear starting next year with a peak of 14 Mbps in both directions.

The 4G network—in which IP rules the entire network from end to end—will feature speeds up to 1 Gbps by 2010, apparently, using Variable Spreading Factor Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing with Multiple-In/Multiple-Out antennas. OFDM is used in 802.11a, 802.11g, and the MBOA’s flavor of UWB, among other purposes.

While the 1 Gbps speed involved four antennas and a short distance, DoCoMo has shown other impressive demonstrations of their coming 4G flavor:

Earlier this year, the company demonstrated a maximum downstream data rate of 300Mbps with an average rate of 135Mbps. The data rate was achieved during a field experiment in a car running at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour at distances between 800 meters and 1 kilometer from 4G wireless base stations.

Posted by Glennf at December 17, 2004 8:17 PM

Categories: 2.5G and 3G, Cellular, Future

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