10 years of E3 Technology Updates. A Review……
Part 2 - 2002 to 2007
So, as mentioned last month, 2002 saw the launch of the first GPRS faster mobile phone data service. This area of technology has taken huge leaps and bounds forward in the last five years. On mobile phones the maximum data transmission speed has jumped from GSM, at 9,6 kbps, through GPRS and 3G speeds to HSDPA in 2006, at 1,800kbps, and now to, as announced at our recent visit to the 3GSM World Congress, we are preparing for HSUPA at 7,000kbps!
In August 2002 I reported..
“GPRS is still behaving erratically when roaming.
Vodafone have launched from July a GPRS only SIM card. The GPRS service has, so far, only been available on the back of a voice, fax and data GSM SIM card.
The launch of the Telular SX5 installable GPRS data modem has been delayed now until September. This will make a perfect partner to the GPRS only SIM service. Nokia have launched a PCMCIA GPRS and LAN card.”
Plus in 2002 Vodafone announced to their customers reductions in GPRS roaming charges, when roaming on their own networks in Europe. Vodafone have continued with this policy and in March 2007 they have just announced HUGE reductions in charges when roaming on their own networks in Europe to take effect from July this year.
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In February 2003, we predicted that 2003 would really be the year for GPRS. This did turn out to be correct, once all the 2002 teething problems had been resolved! Also the first 3G networks became operational in 2003, and both Motorola and Nokia launched their first 3G handsets.
“Motorola have announced their first 3G handset the A830. It has similar functionality to the current GPRS phone ie. tri-band, SMS, MMS, Bluetooth (of which I only use 20%). However it also supports the US only WCDMA standard, it has a 176x220 4,096 colour display, it has Multicall-so you can be downloading an MP3 file from the Internet and still make calls and it incorporates an integrated MP3 player and GPS!
However, not to be outdone, Nokia have included a video camera in their 6650 3G model, so you can shoot video footage whilst making a call!! Just think how useful that will be at for example, sports events or the labour ward(!)……….”
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A year later in April 2004 we announced the official launch by Vodafone of their 3G service…
“On 12th February 2004 Vodafone Spain, together with Vodafone in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and UK, announced the launch of their first commercial 3G (UMTS) services.
What is 3G (UMTS)? In layman’s terms it provides, up to 10 times, faster connection speeds (384kbps), than the current mobile GPRS data communications (38.4kbps) and the old GSM data speed (9.6kbps).”
3G has now been operational for 3 years and coverage is almost universal. During my recent travels to various locations in Spain, France, Monaco, Germany, Italy and Holland I have experienced uninterrupted 3G service everywhere. Unfortunately, again during my recent visit to Miami the USA can still only offer GPRS supplemented by many local Wi-Fi services.
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In March 2006, after attending the 3GSM World Congress we reported…
“After a slow start, 3G UMTS started to gain significant traction during 2004. 3G was promising max data speeds of 320kbps. By the end of that year some 60 operators were delivering 3G UMTS services in 30 countries including most of western Europe. By the end of 2005 this community had grown to 94 operators serving 48 million users in 40 countries spanning Europe, Asia, Australasia, the USA and Africa.
With further phased enhancements of 3G UMTS and HSDPA in development, realisable maximum data rates are set to rise from 1.8Mb in 2006 to 3.6Mbps in 2007 and 7.2Mbps in 2008. These data rates will compete with those offered on fixed, copper wire broadband networks, with the added convenience of being wireless, and will open up new markets opportunities for all.
Thus in the last ten years, mobile data transmission has increased in speed from 9,600 bits per second to 7,200,000 bits per second or, to put it more simply, a car that originally traveled at 30kph can now travel at 21,000 kph.”
Most of the articles for The Islander and others can be downloaded from our website: www.e3s/information/tech.htm.
Part 3, next month will look at the huge leap that Marine Sattelite Communications have taken during this five year review period.
By Roger Horner of E3 Systems
For further information on any of the above, please contact us.
email on info@e3s.com and website www.e3s.com
Tel: +34 971 40420/400738/702975