13 May 2008
In the last four years, WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) – a high speed transmission protocol for 3G mobile networks – has become increasing popular, with global subscriptions rising from 18 million in 2004 to 170 million in 2007.
That is according to analyst ABI Research, which expects this figure to rise to 740 million by the end of 2013, but warned that operators may find WCDMA coverage very expensive in certain areas, something that could be overcome with spectrum refarming.
Jake Saunders, vice president at the research company, elaborated: "“WCDMA is on its way towards proven success but there are still challenges and hurdles to overcome.
"In particular, operators find that expanding WCDMA coverage in the 2100 MHz band into low-density urban and rural areas is very costly in the current competitive environment."
ABI Research warned operators refarming spectrum for WCDMA that they may need to manage voice and data traffic volumes between the 900 and 21Mhz bands to ensure that there are no dropped connections.
According to analyst Berg Insight, there will be 186 million mobile network connections used for machine-to-machine communications by 2012, up from 37.5 million in 2007. It said that 71 per cent of the market is currently attributable to GSM technology, but with WCDMA so far being adopted primarily in Japan.
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