3G will never be faster than 1.8Mbits

3.6Mbits, 7.2Mbits and 10.8Mbits HSDPA folly according to Wimax competition

New broadband internet services being rolled out by mobile operators will never exceed speeds of 1.8Mbits/sec, according to the vice-president of a company providing the rival Wimax technology.

Paul Senior, vice president of marketing for WiMax vendor Airspan, claimed 3G-HSDPA roadmaps set out by mobile companies were misleading: "I am pretty certain that you will not see any solution based on 3G that can deliver more than 1.8 Mbits/sec [out side of a lab]", he said.

Consumers won't see speed increases until 2010 at the earliest, with the launch of 4G.

Although handsets will cope with speeds of 1.8Mbits/sec, no current devices and few future ones will manage anything greater because they can only process a limited amount of data. This is because of power consumption constraints specifically related to HSDPA.

When confronted with these figures T-Mobile commented: "You're not entirely wrong."

Laptop data cards and mobile phones rated at 3.6Mbits/sec will be available next year. Data cards may well be able to access 7.2Mbits/sec in the long run, but T-Mobile admitted serious power-consumption restraints will limit speeds initially. There are currently no plans for 7.2Mbits/sec mobile phones, while laptop data cards will be capped at 7.2Mbits/sec, said T-Mobile.

T-Mobile said it will begin offering 10.8Mbits/sec per cell in late 2006 and 14Mbits/sec per cell in 2007. These figures have made big headlines in the press without the emphasis on 'per cell'.

A cell typically covers half a square mile to over 100 square miles, so 10.8Mbits/sec covering one cell will result in vigorous contention. For example, if 100 users try to access the internet via HSDPA within 50 square kilometres of each other (although it could be much higher in London) their maximum download speed would be about 100Kbits/sec.

The successor to 3G, 4G, will hit 20Mbit/sec per cell download speeds in 2010. The competing Wimax standard hopes to offer users two-way 10Mbits/sec wireless broadband in London and Manchester in 2007 and other cities during 2008. Wimax will go head to head with HSDPA services from T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange and 3 as well as wired broadband.