Part One
Cellular Wireless Standards
Introduction
Since the introduction of the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) in 1991, the ecosystem of equipment vendors, application providers, and service enablers has grown significantly. Moreover, the development and availability of wireless broadband techniques now allows for an even tighter integration of web-based services on mobile devices. In the context of wireless networks, the key parameters defining the application performance include the data rate and the network latency. Some applications require only low bit rates of a few tens of kilobits per second but demand very low delay, as in Voice over IP (VoIP) and online games [4]. On the other hand, the download time of large files is only defined by the maximum data rate, and latency does not play a big role in this application.
In terms of penetration, mobile wireless telephony surpassed fixed-line volumes in 2004, whereas broadband coverage is still lagging behind [1]. Current surveys forecast a maximum penetration of approximately 25 % for European markets [5]. In Indonesia actually, High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) broadband access surpassed fixed broadband access in 2008. A recent study by Ericsson [2] claims that there are already 5 billion subscribers worldwide (July 2010), with a daily growth rate of 2 million; for 2020, some 50 billion subscribers are predicted. HSDPA played a big, if not the most important, role in the success of mobile broadband services. ...
