Fixed Wireless Moving To 4G

There are a couple of faces to fixed wireless broadband for business. First is the licensed microwave services that you’ll find downtown in major cities. The coverage is limited to a few thousand feet with strict line of sight requirements. Bandwidth is high, but availability is very limited.

The other approach is to piggy-back on the 3G cellular broadband services that already blanket the country. This approach offers lower bandwidth, similar to a T1 line, but is available just about anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. That has made it perfect for rural locations, temporary stores and small businesses that need a broadband connection fast.

Accel Networks has been a leader in 3G fixed wireless in the United States and Canada. Their winning approach has been in contracting with multiple wireless providers and creating a proprietary hardware solution that is plug-and-play for the user. Your equipment package comes pre-programmed for the optimal carrier signal available at your location. The Maestro antenna system ensures a solid RF link. All you need to do is connect to the serial or Ethernet connection and you are ready to go in as little as 3 days from order placement.

What do you get in the way of performance. You have a static or dynamic IP address on a PCI compliant private Layer 2 connection. Typical 3G data rates average 1 Mbps download by 512 Kbps upload. A service level agreement assures you of 99.9% availability. Coverage includes 99% of all retail locations in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

As good as 3G fixed wireless is, businesses are pressing for more bandwidth. Fixed wireless providers are following the cellular upgrade path from 3G to 4G as it is fielded. Accel Networks has launched their 4G service with a proprietary antenna and embedded modem technology. Speeds are expected to increase to 6 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload with under 100 mSec of latency.

How long until you can upgrade from 3G to 4G? The industry changeover is expected to be completed within the next two years. It will depend on where you are located as to how quickly you can install 4G fixed wireless broadband.

If you’ve been following the consumer smartphone upgrades from 3G to 4G, you know that there are a competing technologies. The ultimate is LTE (Long Term Evolution), a GSM technology that looks like it will become the universal standard. That includes a switchover for CDMA carriers like Verizon. In the mean time, carriers are performing intermediate upgrades to their existing networks to squeeze out a little more bandwidth. Why? It’s quite expensive to install new circuit cards in every cellular base station to change the technology of the signals being transmitted. Simple evolutionary upgrades often involve only a software upgrade to existing hardware. T-Mobile is taking this approach with an upgrade from HSPA to HSPA+ prior to full deployment of LTE.

The other limitation to higher speed cellular deployment is backhaul. This is the connection between the cell tower and the centralized switching equipment. Up till recently, T1 lines were used for cellular backhaul. They offer 1.5 Mbps in both upload and download directions and are both highly reliable and available anywhere twisted pair telephone wire exists. That’s just about everywhere, including out in the boonies. Bonding T1 lines can increase bandwidth by adding two, four, six or more T1 lines in parallel. That’s good to about 12 Mbps. After that, you need either microwave backhaul or fiber optic connection.

Fiber optic is the way to go if at all possible. The bandwidth is nearly unlimited and you only pay for the construction costs once. The problem is that there are several hundred thousand cell towers sites that need to be upgraded to fiber. In remote locations, fiber is nowhere nearby and needs to be brought-in. Even in the cities, there is a cost and time involved to upgrade each cell. That, plus the cost of the hardware and labor for site just to switch to LTE limits how fast the carriers can move. Even so, cellular broadband is so lucrative that billion dollar investments will continue to flow until the job is completed.

Will fixed wireless work for your business situation? If so, prices are very attractive for both 3G and 4G fixes wireless broadband solutions. Check pricing and availability to see if you really need those landline connections after all.

T-Mobile G2 With Google is 4G

T-Mobile has upped the ante on smartphone performance with the introduction of the G2. The “G” in G2 stands for Google. That means integrated access to Google Voice, which can automatically transcribe voice mails to text so you can read them like an email or text message.

The G2 is also an Android phone, running Android 2.2. It has a 3.7 inch full touch screen with 7 customizable home panels. You can download thousands of apps and widgets from the Android Market to customize your smartphone. It’s just one click away.

Here are some more interesting features about the T-Mobile G2. Unlike a certain other smartphone that will remain nameless (think: it keeps the doctor away), the G2 is enabled with an Adobe Flash Player. It also comes with a slide out full QWERTY keyboard that opens and closes using unique “z-hindge”. That means real keys for fast and sure text entry rather than tapping on the glass to write your messages.

But what about the 4G? Is that WiMAX or LTE? Neither one. T-Mobile is leapfrogging the other 4G players by rolling out HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access). It’s a GSM technology that has been evolving for years rather than something completely new. As such, T-Mobile expects to have it available in 100 major markets serving 200 million people by the end of the year.

But is it fast? It screams. Theoretical peak download speeds are up to 21 Mbps, with peak upload speeds up to 5.7 Mbps. In actual service, you probably won’t see that much bandwidth, perhaps a third of those peak values, but it is enough of an advance from 3G to deserve the 4G designation.

What else does the T-Mobile G2 have that’s eye-opening? The digital camera is a 5.0 Megapixel model that includes auto-focus and HD video capability. You can record HD videos in 720 resolution. Send and receive picture and video messages using multimedia messaging. Or, stay with SMS text messaging, IM, or email, as your fingers fly on that QWERTY keyboard.

There are, of course, the usual multimedia niceties that we’ve come to expect in smartphones. The MP3 player supports MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA, MPEG4, WAV and MIDI formats. There’s an FM radio on-board in case you tire of your tunes collection or want to catch the latest news and sports scores. Social networks are easily accessible. You can get to Twitter, Facebook and MySpace quickly. After all, quick is the name of the game in social networking. If you must work, then you’ll have attachment viewing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files with Word and Excel editing possible with apps from the Android Market.

Is G2 the one for you? If so, learn more and order your T-Mobile G2 Android phone with service at a terrific online discount.

Of course, you can shop to your heart’s content for Android and other smartphones plus standard cell phone models. They’re all available discounted or even free at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

Cell Phone Plans With Aircards

Wireless modem aircards are the way you free yourself from the tyranny of the WiFi hotspot. With an aircard, your laptop computer suddenly becomes a mobile computer. But how do these work and what types of service plans do you need to use aircards?

An aircard is basically a digital two-way radio. But it’s a special kind of radio. Its signals are digital computer data rather than telephone calls.

But aren’t aircards set up to run on cell phone networks? Indeed they are. Right now the vast majority of wireless modem aircards are designed to meet one of the two major cellular broadband standards. Those are EVDO for Sprint and Verizon Wireless or EDGE and HSPA for AT&T and T-Mobile. There is another standard called WiMAX that is just being deployed in major cities by Clearwire.

As you may have surmised, you need a cellular service plan to use the cellular network. For an aircard, you buy what is called a data plan. That’s different from the voice plan that you would order for normal cell phone operations. The data plan gives you full time access to the provider’s nationwide data network. It’s just like having DSL or Cable broadband but without the wires.

There often is one limitation. Because the cellular networks have limited wireless capability, you are limited to a certain number of Gigabytes downloaded per month. For most mobile users the 5 GB limit won’t be a limitation. But if you expect to be downloading a lot of video, especially HD video, you could exceed your monthly limit and have to pay overage charges.

Cellular broadband is not intended to replace a wireline BB connection. It’s really just to let you have access to the Internet while you are on the go. Many business users buy aircards so that they can take their laptops into a customer’s office and make a presentation or enter an order. They can also sit in a parking lot, airport, or restaurant that doesn’t offer free WiFi and be on the Internet.

Most of the newer wireless modem aircards look like USB flash memories and simply plug into your computer using an open USB port. Other models have PCMCIA or ExpressCard connectors. If you order one of these, be sure your computer has compatible ports.

Some devices come with aircards already built-in. These include the new netbooks, which are very small notebook computers designed to run on a particular cellular network or WiFi. The more advanced cell phones or smartphones also give you Internet access without having to buy a separate aircard. That circuitry is included in the radio within the phone. You will have to buy a data plan as well as a voice plan to use your cell phone for both talking and surfing the Web.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

Cell Phone Wireless Broadband

If you are only using a cell phone to talk, you're missing half the capability of the cellular networks. What started as a mobile voice network is now both a voice and data network. Not just text data, but wireless broadband Internet access that rivals fixed DSL and Cable broadband offerings.

What's available in mobile Internet service today? If you haven't used this capability or been following industry developments, you may be surprised by how available and how fast cell phone wireless Internet access has become. There are two rival systems in use today, with two more even faster networks starting the build-out phase.

AT&T has championed their HSDPA and EDGE networks, with the most talked-about implementation being the Apple iPhone. The original iPhone runs on EDGE, with broadband speeds around 100 Kbps. That's at least twice what you'd get with dial-up, but modest by broadband standards.

The new iPhone 3GS runs on the HSDPA or High Speed Download Packet Access network. That jumps the download speed up to a maximum of 3.6 Mbps, with typical user speeds around 500 to 700 Kbps. That's more what you'd expect in basic broadband service and enough to enable fast Web browsing and video downloads. Right now AT&T is upgrading its network to a faster technology called HSPA which should double your access speeds.

T-Mobile uses the same technologies for voice and data as AT&T. Both are worldwide carriers based on GSM service that is popular internationally.

Verizon and Sprint are CDMA rather than GSM carriers. That means they use a completely different technology. On the data side this is called EVDO for EVolution Data Optimized. EVDO is highly competitive with HSDPA, with a basic Rev 0 speed offering bursts of up to 2.1 Mbps on downloads and a typical speed of 400 to 700 Kbps. EVDO Rev A takes that up to 3.1 Mbps download bursts, although typical speeds are only modestly improved to around 800 Kbps. What Rev A really does is improve upload speeds to 300 to 400 Kbps.

As you can see, the 3G networks for the major cellular carriers give you similar performance. Your choice probably will revolve more around the coverage available in your area and the particular model of phone, aircard or netbook that you choose.

What's even more interesting is the 4G wireless broadband in the development and early deployment phase right now. Sprint has partnered with Clearwire to create a new service called WiMAX that will run on completely different frequencies. AT&T and Verizon are working to develop a competing technology called LTE, or Long Term Evolution, that will also use different frequencies than are being used for cellular service now. That means that 3G and 4G networks will co-exist, at least for awhile.

How fast will 4G be? They'll start out about 10x as fast as 3G and go up from there as the technology is refined and deployed everywhere. The 4G wireless networks will be the equal of faster wireline broadband services today and will easily support services such as real-time two-way video.

While 4G is the coming thing, 3G is the hot mobile broadband service readily available today. Discover the wide variety of cell phones, smartphones, wireless modem aircards and netbook computers available with cell phone wireless broadband, often free or at very attractive discounts.

4G Wireless Quietly Encroaching on 3G

To hear the cellular carriers describe it, the mobile world is going 3G wireless as the defined cutting edge technology available today. Meanwhile, a competing and faster technology is being slowly deployed, city by city, across the country. What's really going on?

It's actually little more than the usual pattern of technological improvement. It starts with an invention, in this case wireless data service, followed by steady improvements as time goes on. We saw this with the personal computer. Today's PC shares a lot of commonality with the one's of decades ago. You still have a CPU, disk drive, RAM, ROM, monitor, keyboard and mouse. But the speed and capacity of today's machines are orders of magnitude above the best you could buy years ago.

Mobile data is on a similar growth curve. WiFi hotspots are something of a unique product with a very limited coverage area, which is unlikely to change. Wide area mobile service is really the domain of the cellular carriers. By building an extensive network of towers and transmitting stations, they have wide footprint of wireless coverage for telephone calls. Piggybacking a data service on this same infrastructure is a logical and cost effective move.

What started as dial-up speed data service for mobile phones has been steadily improved down two paralleled paths, mirroring the two most popular types of cellular service. CDMA, used by Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel, offers EV-DO and EV-DO Rev. A cellular broadband. GSM, used by AT&T and T-Mobile, offers EDGE and HSPA broadband. The latest incarnations are considered third generation or 3G. Access is now available through many if not most cell phones, wireless aircards used as adaptors for laptop computers, and built into the latest netbook computers.

The 3G services aren't done evolving, but they soon will be. AT&T wants to double it's current 3 Mbps peak speed over the next couple of years. Verizon and Sprint are on a similar upgrade path, perhaps a little faster at deployment.

But one carrier isn't waiting for the 3G marketplace to mature. They're already moving ahead to 4G. That carrier is Sprint, in combination with Clearwire. Since the company carries the Clearwire name, those not watching this closely might not realize that it's related to the competitive cellular business.

The 4G technology is WiMAX, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It doesn't interfere with current cellular operations or use the same transmission frequencies. It's being launched in parallel with today's 3G networks. In a few cities you can have your choice of 3G or 4G. Download speeds for the 4G WiMAX service are typically 4 to 6 Mbps with bursts beyond 15 Mbps.

WiMAX also isn't being touted as a cellular technology. There's no cellphone service or handsets. Instead, WiMAX is being offered as a broadband Internet service for home or business, with a mobile service available through plug-in aircards like those used for 3G cellular. You can also get VoIP telephone service bundled, similar to what is offered by cable and telephone companies.

Where is WiMAX 4G service available? It's been deployed in Baltimore, Portland OR, and just recently Atlanta. The plan is also to launch service in Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas / Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle this year. By the end of 2010, Clearwire expects to be service 80 major cities in the U.S.

AT&T's 4G service will be based on LTE or Long Term Evolution technology. Verizon is planning a similar approach. LTE won't get started for a year or so, but it will follow a similar approach to WiMAX in that it will use different channels than those in use for 3G, so that both 3G and 4G services can exist simultaneously.

There is some thought that once 4G technologies mature, 3G will be phased out. Perhaps the current cell phone technologies will follow suit. The trend is toward converged IP networks for everything. That suggests that VoIP running on 4G networks along with data service on the same channels will be the new wireless communications technology.

I'm Not Paying For That Aircard

Office wireline business Internet connections offer fast and reliable broadband service... as long as you stay in one place. For mobile operation you need to hunt down WiFi hotspots or get a wide area wireless service, such as cellular broadband. But very few laptop and notebook computers have the communications interface for cellular broadband built-in.

What you need is a carrier specific interface called an aircard. Sounds expensive, right? Well, they can be but not if you know where to look. What you want is the best free aircard you can get that will work with your particular computer. Fortunately, there are lots of choices available.

An aircard, sometimes called a wireless modem, is not all that different from a plug-in WiFi access card. A few years ago, laptop computers came with built-in telephone modems as their communications solution. If you wanted to connect with a WiFi router or wireless access device, you needed to buy a special card. Most often these plugged into the PCMCIA port on the side of the computer.

Nowadays, nearly all portable computers come with WiFi capability built-in and only some still offer telephone modems. But WiFi is only good within a few hundred foot radius of the connection point. If you want to travel around town, cross country or have broadband service available in a client's place of business, you need a wider ranging wireless Internet service. The best option right now is usually cellular broadband.

Cellular broadband is exactly what it sounds like. Every cell tower transmits both voice and data channels. The voice channels are used to carry cellular telephone calls. The data channels carry broadband Internet service to cell phones and other devices that can access them. A cell phone doesn't need an aircard since the data access circuitry is built-in. All it needs is a data service plan in addition to the usual voice service plan.

A notebook computer needs both the aircard interface and the data service plan for the carrier you want to use. That's another difference between WiFi and cellular broadband. WiFi is more standardized and compatible. Cellular systems generally fall into two distinct technologies. GSM is the worldwide standard and the one used by AT&T and T-Mobile. CDMA is popular in the United States and is used by Sprint-Nextel, Verizon and Alltel.

GSM standards include the 2.5G standard called EDGE and the 3G standard called HSPA. There's also a fallback to an earlier standard called GPRS. CDMA carriers support EV-DO as the 2.5G standard and EV-DO Rev A for 3G. Sprint and Clearwire are starting to deploy a 4G standard called WiMAX, but it is only available in a few places right now. Verizon and AT&T have stated they'll both be using another 4G standard called LTE, with build-outs just starting later this year.

If you want cellular broadband service right now, it's available with speeds that rival DSL, T1 lines, and Cable broadband service in most medium and larger cities. Farther out, you may have to settle for the slower 2.5G services or even dial-up level performance in some rural areas. If you can get solid cell phone service, you can probably get at least some wireless Internet connectivity. It's best to check the coverage maps for the carrier you are interested in to get a better idea of what speeds you can expect.

The other decision you need to make is how to connect the aircard to your computer. Some PCMCIA cards are still available. Newer interfaces include ExpressCard/34 and USB. Nearly all computers now have USB connectors, so that is the most universal interface.

So, where can you get a free aircard that works with your computer? Right now, there are just under a dozen different models available for the major carries. They're all the same price... free... so your decision will be based on size, connector, carrier of choice, Mac or Apple compatibility, and other features that include things like built-in memory card slots. Check the selection of free aircards now. Be sure to click on the features of each card you are interested in to get a summary of the specs. You can also compare multiple aircards side by side. When you find the one you want, click on the order button for more details on the aircard and data service plan. It's that easy to get mobile Internet access for your business or personal needs.

Speedier Network For The iPhone

The Apple iPhone is something of a mixed blessing for AT&T. On the one hand, they have the exclusive cellular voice and data network for the one phone that's still a hot item in this decidedly cool economy. On the other hand, the sheer power of the iPhone's Internet applications is creating a nearly insatiable demand for more bandwidth. It's a challenge that AT&T is rising to meet.

Cellular towers communicate in two ways. One is through a set of channels assigned to handle telephone calls. The other is through a separate set of channels that provide wireless Internet access. It wasn't that many years ago that data was an afterthought for cell phones. Texting was the primary application, with email rising in popularity. Dial-up speeds were plenty good enough to handle slow text based services. But then cell phones started including cameras. With cameras came the demand to be able to send those pictures to other phones and post them on Internet sites. Web browsers started to be included. Today, the best ones are full HTML capable and work the way you'd expect on a desktop or notebook computer. The final straw is video. People aren't satisfied waiting for short low definition video clips to download. Now they want high quality streaming video and even live TV.

As you can imagine, these faster applications have increased the demands on cellular service the same way they did for home and business access. Dial-up is totally inadequate. Entry level broadband is noticeably poky. What everyone wants is the same speeds they get at home and at work. That's typically in the 3 to 10 Mbps range for what's considered "fast" service today.

The first Apple iPhone operated on what is called the EDGE network. That's an acronym for Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution. It refers to a protocol used by GSM carriers, a popular International standard. AT&T is a GSM carrier. AT&T advertises EDGE download speeds as being in the range of 75 to 135 Kbps on the average. Peak speeds are higher, but it depends on how close to the tower you are and how many other users are sharing the service. Enhanced means enhanced over the previous dial-up speeds offered on the network.

The second version of the iPhone runs on the AT&T 3G Network which uses a different protocol called HSPA or High Speed Packet Access. Download speeds are improved to 700 Kbps to 1.7 Mbps, with fast upload speeds of 500 Kbps to 1.2 Mbps. Peak speeds can hit 3.6 Mbps. That's a lot faster, and more typical of what you need to run today's demanding applications even in a mobile environment.

But there's no way that AT&T can afford to rest at this plateau of performance. In fact, they're reportedly doubling their HSPA technology with software upgrades to achieve a peak bandwidth of 7.2 Mbps. That probably equates to 1 to 2.4 Mbps on average for typical use. There is also another upgrade possible to double that to a peak capacity of 14.4 Mbps.

The days of 3G are numbered, however. The hot new technologies are LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMAX which promise bandwidths of 10 Mbps or more. Sprint and Clearwire are building out WiMAX. Verizon and AT&T are going with LTE. This technology will have the designation of "4G" to imply another generation of wireless technology. Until the economy picks up, though, don't expect a rapid deployment of 4G this year or even next. After that, 4G could become the new 3G and everybody will wondering when they're going to get something really fast... like 5G.

4G Wireless Broadband Wars This Year

Later this year, the battle for 4G domination will begin in earnest.

4G? Has 3G really finished deployment yet? Actually, 3G wireless networks are pretty well out there. The big players, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, have upgraded most of their tower sites in populous areas. Many 3G smartphones and wireless modem aircards are available. While user awareness and adoption of 3G is still early on the learning curve, there's seemingly no time to waste for the carriers. It's on to 4G!

What's the big hurry? Part of it is an increasing sophistication in mobile applications with a corresponding increase in bandwidth demand. Some is good old fashioned competition. Think of it something like the space race or the building of the transcontinental railroad. The real value of these 4G networks is less about what's absolutely needed now and what they will enable in the future.

The 3G competition is based on two competing incompatible standards. The CDMA networks of Verizon, Alltel, and Sprint have developed EVDO technology. GSM networks, including AT&T, T-Mobile and foreign carriers have developed UMTS broadband, notably EDGE and HSPA.

The 4G competition is also dividing along two lines. First out of the gate is WiMAX, a worldwide standard for fixed and mobile broadband. But building steam is LTE, which is oddly enough being embraced by both Verizon and AT&T. Who's pushing WiMAX? Sprint and a fixed wireless player, Clearwire.

Is this going to be something like the ongoing DTV transition where one technology goes dark and the other immediately takes its place? No, not really. Both 3G and 4G will co-exist for a long time to come. WiMAX is being deployed in the 2.5 GHz band using the combined channel licenses owned by Sprint and Clearwire. Verizon and AT&T will use 700 MHz spectrum acquired in the recent telecom auction that was formerly the domain of analog TV broadcasting. That allows 3G cellular broadband to continue on the existing cellular bands as long as it makes economical sense.

One question is how much additional bandwidth we'll get from 4G wireless. During the run-up to the WiMAX standards approval, it was widely touted that a single WiMAX tower would have a range of something like 30 miles with bandwidth anywhere from 30 to 70 Mbps near the transmitter. In practice, Sprint was offering 2 to 4 Mbps download speeds on its Xohm service in Baltimore. The Xohm name has been retired, as Clearwire is taking over management of the combined Sprint and Clearwire channels. Clearwire has upped that to 4 to 6 Mbps on its Clear (tm) 4G wireless service for Portland, OR.

LTE hasn't been deployed yet, but peak data rates of 60 to 80 Mbps have been observed in tests. Verizon has suggested that average LTE data rates of around 8 Mbps are likely in actual service, although that may be conservative. Since there is a tradeoff between bandwidth, number of users per transmitter and distance from the tower, it seems likely that both LTE and WiMAX could be scaled up to provide speedier service as customer demand and the competitive environment dictate.

WiMAX has a lead in the race to the 4G wireless marketplace, with systems already in commercial service. Verizon's LTE has an advantage of frequencies lower in the electromagnetic spectrum, which should translate into greater ability to penetrate into buildings. Verizon expects to have 2 markets served by LTE by the end of this year. In 2010, Verizon expects to launch around 25 to 30 markets with LTE service. WiMAX will likely have a similar service level. There are now 50 markets in the U.S. and Europe with a pre-market version of WiMAX service.

4G wireless will likely reach a tipping point in 2011 or 2012, depending on the economy. Both mobile and fixed location services will be available, offering competition to DSL and Cable modem service as well as powering smartphones and netbooks. What will all this bandwidth be used for? You can bet that video will be the proverbial "killer-app", along with cloud computing and interactive everything.

AT&T HSUPA Aircards Have the Edge Over EDGE

AT&T, like the other major wireless carriers, has been on a determined program to upgrade its cellular data capabilities. Broadband is the service in demand for everything from Web browsing to streaming mobile video. Wireless is the broadband service in demand. Everyone wants to be connected to the Internet 24/7 wherever they happen to be. AT&T is only too happy to scratch that itch.

If you've been dutifully plodding along with your wireline broadband connection at work and/or home and get by with a basic cell phone for staying in touch verbally, then you may have missed the latest initiatives in the mobile broadband revolution. Even if you venture out with your trusty laptop to enjoy a hot cup of joe and relax with your favorite websites at a nearby WiFi hotspot, you may not be getting all the mobility you could have.

WiFi hotspots have been the rage for years, with free WiFi now expected in restaurants and hotels. What's really helped establish this technology is standardized interfaces built into nearly every laptop, notebook and netbook computer. Many smartphones are also WiFi enabled. WiFi has given everyone the idea that the Internet needn't be a tether to your desk. But WiFi has some real limitations.

This is what the much heralded WiMAX is supposed to address. Think of WiMAX as a WiFi hotspot that covers a town. Sounds pretty good, right? But WiMAX has been in development for years and is only now starting its years and years of nation-wide buildout.

In the meantime, the established mobile communications providers - the cell phone carriers - have been thinking that they've already established their turf and have the transmitting towers in place to provide near-universal wireless coverage. The one thing they've been lacking is a really fast Internet service to go along with their mobile telephone service.

This is the system that AT&T has been building out. It's been done in stages with connectivity similar to a dial-up ISP being launched first. Next came true broadband with a service called EDGE or Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. EDGE gives you bandwidth similar to entry level DSL services at around 384 Kbps. That's not bad for email or general Web surfing, but most users are now spoiled with higher speeds and bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming video.

To gain more bandwidth, AT&T has been upgrading to a faster technology called HSPA or High Speed Packet Access. HSPA comes in two flavors. HSDPA is High Speed Downlink Packet Access. It is focused on a large download bandwidth of of up to 3.6 Mbps with a relatively small upload bandwidth. HSUPA offers a true broadband upload channel with download speeds up to 2 Mbps. I say "up to" because the performance you experience will vary with signal strength and how many other users are trying to access the network at the same time you are connected.

How do you get connected to the AT&T 3G BroadbandConnect and Nationwide EDGE networks? You'll need a wireless modem, such as the Option Quicksilver USB Modem, that plugs into a USB connector on your mobile computer. This particular aircard, as wireless modems are called, works with both types of networks. The Nationwide EDGE network is available in 13,000 cities. The faster 3G BroadbandConnect network based on HSPA (including HSUPA and HSDPA technologies) is now available in 260 U.S. metro areas.

The Quicksilver modem works with both PCs and Macs and is available free with your Wireless Data Plan order. The plan runs $60 a month and includes 5 GB of data per month. That's way more than most people will use on a mobile computer.

Sierra Wireless also offers a USB modem called the Sierra Wireless Mercury USB Modem for AT&T. It is also available free of charge with a data plan service order. The Sierra Wireless modem includes a built-in GPS receiver that can be used with location based services and a microSD slot for expandable memory.

If you prefer an aircard that plugs into a PCMCIA slot on your laptop, there are several to choose from. A free one is the Option GT Ultra PCMCIA PC/Mac Card which has a retractable butterfly antenna. Others available for a small cost include the Sierra Wireless AC881 PC/Mac PCMCIA Card, and the Option GT Ultra ExpressCard PC/Mac Card that fits into the ExpressCard/34 (mm) slots on some computers. Pick the card and interface that works best with your computers.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

HSUPA Joins HSDPA for Cellular Broadband

AT&T is nearly finished building out its upgraded cellular broadband network called HSPA or High Speed Packet Access. Just in time, too. The new BlackBerry Bold and the rumored iPhone upgrade will make good use of the higher data bandwidths that are now online at the cell towers. While most of the attention has focused on the download link, AT&T has quietly been upgrading the upload link also. What does this tell us about the next generation of mobile applications?

HSPA is part of the alphabet soup that is mobile technology. It's a network upgrade to the first installation of high speed cellular data for GSM networks. EDGE or Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution was good for jump starting applications such as video and music downloads, email, and Web browsing. But with speeds at the low end of what is available from DSL, around 230 Kbps, EDGE starts to feel noticeably poky for general Web browsing and streaming video. The HS in HSPA implies something much faster.

There are actually two pieces to the HSPA puzzle. HSDPA is the first and most important for most users. HSDPA stands for High Speed Download Packet Access. The download link has a maximum capacity of 14.4 Mbps or somewhere between 1 and 7 Mbps in practice. It's a huge improvement from EDGE and similar to Cable broadband speeds. Like most data links designed around Internet access, the uplink speed is much less. For HSDPA, it's 384 kbps maximum. That's perfectly acceptable if most of what you do is request Web pages, corporate data packages, software upgrades, email, music and video. The uplink requests are relatively small and infrequent. The big data blast is on the download link.

AT&T has pretty much completed its upgrade to HSDPA and now in the process of adding the second piece of the HSPA service, HSUPA or High Speed Uplink Packet Access. What HSUPA does in increase the uplink capacity from 384 kbps to a range of 500 to 800 kbps out of a maximum theoretical value of 5.76 Mbps. That complements AT&T download speeds of 1.4 Mbps.

Why bother upgrading the uplink? You don't need it for casual Web browsing, but it does have value for uploading larger files or running real-time applications such as mobile video conferencing. It also speeds things like posting to blogs, updating Web sites, or sending photos with high resolutions or video clips. Our impression that the nature of mobile services is changing is confirmed by wireless network upgrades such as HSUPA.

HSPA gives AT&T a fully functional 3G network, just in time to start working on further upgrades to 4G. HSPA has an evolutionary path called HSPA+ that increases downlink speeds to 42 Mbps and uplink speeds to 22 Mbps. Whether that path will be fully exploited remains to be seen, as AT&T is also committed to another technology called LTE or Long Term Evolution that ramps up the data bandwidth to 300 Mbps on the downlink and 75 Mbps on the uplink. This technology won't be fully deployed for at least a few years, giving us time to come up with HD video and other applications that can make good use of these incredible 4G speeds.