Early movers may be well into LTE deployments, but HSPA still has legs, according to 4G Americas.
The 3GPP trade association yesterday stated that the latest evolution of the standard could deliver theoretical peak speeds of 336Mbps.
The upcoming 3GPP Rel-11 promises to double the 168Mbps peak of the most recent iteration, and be leaps and bounds ahead of the initial 14Mbps ceiling.
Work is underway on projects to evaluate possible additions to Rel-11, 4G Americas said.
Chris Pearson, 4G Americas' president, said that "explosive growth of wireless data usage is driving the standardization of technical enhancements to increase throughput speeds and capabilities of HSPA mobile broadband networks."
He acknowledged that there is “tremendous momentum” behind LTE, but added that “HSPA will continue to be a leader in mobile broadband subscriptions for the next five to ten years.”
There are currently 412 commercially HSPA networks in operation worldwide, including 165 HSPA networks, and some forecasts suggest there will be up to 3.5 billion HSPA subscribers by the end of 2016, Pearson said.