The HSDPA network will provide coverage all over the island and services will be available wherever customers use mobile services today. In the coming months, Lucent will survey both consumer and enterprise users in the area to understand the impact of the new high-speed network.
Among the first visitors was a group of trade and technical journalists from the mainland who braved the short but very bumpy flight over the Irish Sea in gale force winds to witness the new network in action at Manx Telecom headquarters in Douglas.
They were greeted by representatives from O2, Manx Telecom and Lucent and were treated to both HSDPA and IMS demos.
Chris Hall, managing director of Manx Telecom, explained what the network will offer end users on the Isle of Man: "Manx Telecom"Ëœs vision is to provide services that enrich people"Ëœs lives - wherever they are and whenever they want them," he explained. "Our advanced network on the Isle of Man serves as a showcase of the tremendous opportunity offered by the latest technology to our customers." Chris Hall went on to describe how working with Lucent enabled Manx to have a very early deployment of HSDPA, allowing the company to gain the knowledge and expertise
in high-speed mobile data services which could eventually be rolled out across the O2 Group, including the UK, Germany and Ireland.
O2's Group CTO, Dave Williams, detailed O2's HSDPA roll-out plans for the visitors: "The commercial launch of Europe's first HSDPA network and future introduction of IMS-enabled services here on the Isle of Man demonstrates our commitment to providing our subscribers with the most innovative services", he remarked. "This project highlights O2"Ëœs continued leadership in the introduction of enhanced next-generation communications solutions."
Guests also saw a series of demonstrations. Two of the most popular were the HSDPA Bearer Capability Demonstration, which compares the laptop user's experiences when using different wireless access technologies; and Active PhoneBook (APB), an IMS application that enables a user to know the availability and location of his or her contact/buddy list (depending upon the privacy relationship settings of the individual users) and makes blended communications possible.
John Leonard, vice president, Strategy & Offer Management at Lucent Technologies, described Lucent's contributions to the network: "Manx represents a showcase reference network in the region that demonstrates not only Lucent's technology and products, but also our ability to offer innovative IMS based services that allow operators to differentiate. In early 2006, Manx will start trialing our Active PhoneBook application which we are all very excited about, as it will be clear evidence of the power of blended services."
The launch marks Lucent's second commercial HSDPA network deployment and follows the completed upgrades of Cingular Wireless' third-generation UMTS networks in Seattle and Phoenix to support HSDPA technology. Lucent is also conducting W-CDMA/HSDPA trials with operators including eAccess Ltd. in Japan, and is the first company to complete a field trial of HSDPA technology in China on a 3G W-CDMA trial network deployed by China Netcom in Shanghai.
Interested in getting live experience of HSDPA on the Isle of Man‾ Working in cooperation with Manx Telecom, Lucent offers visitors the opportunity to watch demonstrations based on Manx Telecom"Ëœs commercial 3G services, including office applications utilizing laptops and HSDPA data cards; speed, mobility, and network responsiveness (latency) demos; and IMS applications such as Active PhoneBook.