T-Mobile to Speed-up HSPA+ to 42Mbps

[Craig Horlacher]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/02/t-mobile-moves-up-to-75-live-hspa-markets-says-its-running/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/02/...ys-its-running/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"T-Mobile is announcing this evening that it's now got 75 live HSPA+ markets online, with coverage for roughly 200 million Americans up and running by the end of 2010. That footprint will start off at a theoretical max downlink of 21Mbps, but the carrier will be looking to scale that to 42Mbps in 2011 with the capacity to upgrade to 84 and 168Mbps down the road -- all without ever worrying about LTE"</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/adt/auto/1294367585.usr309.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>I knew HSPA had growing room but man, 42Mbps this year with up to 168Mbp down the road is impressive.&nbsp; Since current WiMax offerings I've heard of are only in the 5-20Mbps, HSPA+ sounds pretty good.&nbsp; I am curious if many people would even use or notice the increased speed that current "4G" implementations offer.&nbsp; Can you think of a situation where it would be valuable to you on a somewhat regular basis?&nbsp; Would you be willing to pay extra for high speed service?&nbsp; If you're using WiMax already, are you happy with it?&nbsp; Is battery life a problem for you?</p>

[Sven Johannsen]

How about not worrying about the download speed so much as building out a network that can handle the customer base that is already out there at the data rate currently promised? Does everyone really need to stream Blu-ray quality video to their 2048x 1256 laptop? I assume laptop because that sort of resolution on a 4" cell phone screen is somewhat overkill, wouldn't you say? Beyond that, I expect the only carrier that can sell this is T-Mobile, since I think they are the last ones with 'unlimited' plans. If you are on AT&T you will burn through your 5G allotment in about 4 minutes at 21mbps. (someone check my math, 5xe9 b / 21xe6 bps = 238 sec, 238sec / 60 sec/min = 3.96 min, even if I screwed up megabits vs megabytes in there, it's off by a factor of 8, so at best 32 min. )