Telus/Bell launching North America's first 42Mbps dual carrier HSPA+ network

[Azure]

First carrier in North America to test and begin deployment to support speeds of up to 42 Mb/s using HSPA+ Dual Cell technology

VANCOUVER, Aug. 3 /CNW/ - TELUS today announced Canada's fastest* mobile network is about to get even faster. Using state-of-the-art HSPA+ Dual Cell technology, TELUS will increase its already ultra-fast 3G+ wireless data network access speeds to up to 42 Mb/s when commercial deployment is complete in Canadian cities and towns. TELUS is the only North American carrier to have successfully tested HSPA+ Dual Cell technology in its wireless labs and to announce deployment in its commercial network.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/03/t...-carrier-hspa/

Damn you Telus.

[Azure]

http://mobilesyrup.com/2010/08/03/te...-reach-42-mbs/

[sclitheroe]

I heard it comes with a 2 gig cap

[Azure]

I wouldn't doubt it.

But still, they are raising the bar. Which is good regardless of their stupid bandwidth policies.

[Roast Beef]

so I can go through my 1 gig cap in just a shade over 3 minutes now.

[Acey]

Will be a while before this goes live. One can only hope they smarten up by then and offer decent plans.

[Azure]

Is there actually a reason to restrict data below 6GB? I mean, because of backlog, not enough bandwidth, etc, etc?

At these speeds Telus could easily compete with ISPs all over the province. If they offered decent plans of course.

[sclitheroe]

I wonder what this does for the density of users each tower is able to accomodate, if each HSPA+ device is consuming twice the number of connections to the tower.

From all reports in the big US cities, over-saturation of towers is a real killer for throughput

[FanIn80]

The Bell side of this intrigues me, but the Telus side of it just makes me think it will wind up being a punchline.

[Street Pharmacist]

Someone wanna give a somewhat technically literate person an idea of the relevance and significance of this? will this drastically change what phones can do?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Someone wanna give a somewhat technically literate person an idea of the relevance and significance of this? will this drastically change what phones can do?

All you need to know is that you need to double your tin foil hat layers as more megbitez in the air will give you brain cancer. We are all doomed. Only Benny Hinn can save us.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Someone wanna give a somewhat technically literate person an idea of the relevance and significance of this? will this drastically change what phones can do?

I doubt it means anything for cell phones. I don’t think any handheld device is going to ship any time soon with the dual radios and power budget to operate in a dual-cell setup.

It will be great news for places that don’t have landline access to broadband though, like some industrial parks, construction sites, temporary events, etc.

[Azure]

With time we will see cell phones that are capable of operating with dual radios, but right now I don't think its necessary.

But it is a big deal, in terms of broadband access in many areas where you can't get the traditional internet.

Plus, Telus is pushing the envelope a little further, which is great for the industry and for consumers.

[GrrlGoalie33]

Originally Posted by Azure

Plus, Telus is pushing the envelope a little further, which is great for the industry and for consumers.

Nothing Telus Mobility has done has been great for consumers...

[CubicleGeek]

Curious choice to allocate another 5MHz for a 2nd UMTS carrier instead of looking at a 5MHz LTE solution.

A single 5MHz LTE carrier with 2x2 MIMO will have about the same performance as a dual carrier HSPA+ with half the spectrum usage.

[Envitro]

One thing that people have to realize is even the best/latest smartphones only have a 1Ghz processor and limited RAM, meaning that the bottleneck will always be with processing the data, not how fast it's transferred wirelessly.

The page load may still seem slow since it'll take time for the data to get processed, rendered, etc.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Envitro

One thing that people have to realize is even the best/latest smartphones only have a 1Ghz processor and limited RAM, meaning that the bottleneck will always be with processing the data, not how fast it's transferred wirelessly.

The page load may still seem slow since it'll take time for the data to get processed, rendered, etc.

Were that the case, phones would not perform significantly better surfing the web on wifi than on 3G. Bandwidth is definitely a bottleneck.