Mobile Network Capacity and Performance

In his wireless blog, Mark Heath, of Unwired Insight, explains how available 3G capacity per device is falling. As mobile users increasingly migrate from 2/2.5G to 3G networks, the available 3G network capacity is being shared among a greater number of users. By 2014, a typical incumbent mobile network operator would see its 3G capacity… Read more

In his wireless blog, Mark Heath of Unwired Insight discusses the latest LTE speeds reported by mobile network operators. Am I the only one that gets frustrated by all the hype surrounding LTE speeds and LTE performance? Many in the industry are seeing LTE as the means of avoiding the looming 3G capacity crisis, as… Read more

Mark Heath of Unwired Insight discusses how 3G offloading will be needed to protect 3G capacity as 3G traffic levels continue to rise. With widespread deployment of LTE networks many years away, and with wireless traffic volumes continuing to increase, 3G offloading is becoming a necessity for mobile operators, to protect 3G capacity. Dedicated broadcasting… Read more

Indoor systems will support an increasing proportion of total service usage on mobile devices, with WiFi access points and femtocells deployed more widely. Indoor wireless systems will be a core part of the delivery platform for 3G operators and they will use both WiFi and femtocells to deliver services through fixed broadband connections. By the… Read more

In order to provide high quality of service to their customers, 3G operators must have sufficient network capacity per user, or 3G device, to support our forecast traffic volumes per 3G device. Following the launch of 3G services by a 3G operator, the total available 3G network capacity has only to be shared among a… Read more

We have derived realistic figures for total network capacity per month and network capacity per month per 3G device for a number of operator circumstances, as shown in the table below. For each technology, the table shows the capacity figures that could be achieved by a typical network implementation if ALL 3G devices supported that… Read more

Not all services and content consumed via 3G devices have to be delivered by 3G macrocell networks. There are a number of complementary delivery methods for the delivery of some, or all, services and content, particularly for users with access to a fixed broadband service. Dedicated mobile broadcasting technologies, such as DVB-H, DMB and MediaFLO,… Read more

3G traffic volumes are set to increase substantially in the next five years. Many factors, as shown in the figure below, will support this growth, including: increasing 3G penetration, as users rapidly migrate from 2/2.5G to 3G services increasing penetration of USB modems and datacards (supporting mobile broadband services) increasing penetration of smartphones proliferation of… Read more

A new report from Unwired Insight, entitled ‘Will 3G Networks Cope?’, shows that the relentless growth of 3G traffic volumes will create a 3G network capacity crisis for some mobile network operators as early as 2010. Early deployment of LTE will be essential, and continued growth in data consumption will create insatiable demand for LTE… Read more