I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of snopes.com, but it’s a Web site that takes urban legends and either proves they’re true or debunks them.
One urban legend that I seem to keep hearing about the wireless industry that I wanted to debunk is the rumor about the speed that U.S. consumers have versus the rest of the world.
Without getting too complex, the majority of U.S. consumers use either GSM or CDMA technology. Examples of GSM carriers are AT&T and T-Mobile while CDMA carriers are Verizon Wireless and Sprint.
3G GSM is called High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA).
According to a July 2009 release from the GSM Association, the U.S. has 32 million HSPA subscribers out of the 131 million worldwide. The U.S has 7% of all GSM subscribers in the world but has 23% of all HSPA subscribers in the world.
The 3G CDMA technology is called Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO).
According to Informa Telecoms & Media Group’s June 2009 report on World Cellular Information Service (WCIS), the U.S. has 63.1 million EV-DO subscribers out of 106.78 million worldwide. The U.S. has 23% of all CDMA subscribers yet has 59% of EV-DO subscribers in the world.
And while we have the most 3G subscribers in the world, we are also leading in the evolution to 4G. Verizon Wireless has announced that they'll be launching Long Term Evolution (LTE) in up to 30 markets by 2010 while Clearwire/Sprint's WiMax service is available now in 4 cities and another 10 cities by September 2009. AT&T has also announced their HSPA network upgrades here.
I hope this clarifies and finally puts to rest the urban legend about the wireless technology speeds in the U.S. versus the rest of the world.
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Today's reality is that it is not available nationwide. Where it is available, speeds and coverage are inconsistent. In places where there is a high density of connected users (e.g. trade shows in San Francisco) are simply unable to use their service.
The industry not only needs to pursue faster speeds, but higher reliability and wider availability of these speeds.
And, yes, it's not everywhere, and not always there where you want it at the speed and in the amount you want it.
Last year we filed a paper by CostQuest with the FCC that looked at 3G coverage in the U.S. (See CostQuest Associates' U.S. Ubiquitous Mobility Study: http://files.ctia.org/pdf/080417_UbiquitousMobileB...)
The analysis found that 92% of the US population had 3G coverage at home - but also that 42% of US roadways didn't have 3G coverage. They estimated that 16,000 cell towers needed to built and another 55,000 needed to be upgraded in order to create more ubiquitous 3G coverage - for customers to have access to both GSM and CDMA-based forms of 3G technology. CostQuest estimated that the initial upfront cost of this would be $22 billion. (That cost doesn't include the on-going costs of maintaining the networks, or providing the service, or of adopting and deploying new generations of high speed technologies after that initial investment.)
Here there are a lot of users, somebody's going to feel the pinch. That's especially true as more people have smartphones, netbooks and wireless-enabled laptops - and they ramp up their use of data-heavy (and spectrum-heavy) applications. The NPD Group reported last month that 28% of the handsets sold in the US in the second quarter were smartphones. And that means heavier data traffic, which places heavier demands on system capacity. Earlier this year, Rysavy Research(http://www.ctia.org/blog/index.cfm/2009/4/2/Rysavy...)found that data traffic is expected to grow at a rate about one hundred times greater than voice traffic over the next ten years.
That's why CTIA recently filed comments with the FCC calling for them to help lower the barriers to deployment of mobile broadband - to accelerate the siting process, to identify more spectrum for reallocation to licensed wireless use, and to help clear spectrum that's already been allocated and auctioned. (See CTIA's Comments on the deployment of mobile broadband service at http://files.ctia.org/pdf/filings/090904_FINAL_CTI....) To deliver more service, more quickly, more reliably - providers are going to need more spectrum and more sites.
We have consistently taken steps at our past trade shows to accommodate the incredible demand for wireless service, and we'll be doing the same in San Diego October 7-9. Overall, the increasing interest and demand for bandwidth intensive applications accentuates the need for more spectrum designated for commercial deployment, and expedient tower siting applications procedures that don't currently exist.