HSPA+ Evolution to Release 12: Performance and Optimization

2 HSDPA and HSUPA in Release 5 and 6

Antti Toskala

2.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the Release 5 based High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and Release 6 based High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA). This chapter looks first at the 3GPP activity in creating the standard and then presents the key technology components introduced in HSDPA and HSUPA that enabled the breakthrough of mobile data. Basically, as of today, all networks have introduced as a minimum HSDPA support, and nearly all also HSUPA. Respectively, all new chip sets in the marketplace and all new devices support HSDPA and HSUPA as the basic feature set. This chapter also addresses the network architecture evolution from Release 99 to Release 7, including relevant core network developments.

2.2 3GPP Standardization of HSDPA and HSUPA

3GPP started working on better packet data capabilities immediately after the first version of the 3G standard was ready, which in theory offered 2 Mbps. The practical experience was, however, that Release 99 was not too well-suited for more than 384 kbps data connections, and even those were not provided with the highest possible efficiency. One could have configured a user to receive 2 Mbps in the Dedicated Channel (DCH), but in such a case the whole downlink cell capacity would have been reserved to a single user until the channel data rate downgraded with RRC reconfiguration. The first studies started in 2000 [1], with the first specification in 2002 for HSDPA and ...