The mobile telephony industry uses some very strange terms. As a result, EDGE, GPRS, UMTS and HSDPA have been renamed by marketers as 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G and 3G+. Behind these acronyms lie successive technologies that are gradually bringing mobile speeds closer to those of fixed Internet. "Value-added service professionals and technical sales staff in industrial environments have huge download speed requirements. 3G+ creates a breathtaking gap with 3G", explains Pierre-Yves Rallet, Director of Marketing and Partnerships at SFR Entreprises.
Known by its real name HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), 3.5G is to mobile communications what ADSL is to the home Internet: access to fast speeds that make usage truly user-friendly. Download times for e-mails, web pages, access to intranets and secure corporate networks are divided by four compared with 3G," adds Pierre-Yves Rallet. Mobile professionals in the high added-value tertiary sector are the first to adopt it, as are technical sales staff in industrial environments". Another advantage is transparency for the user, with terminals automatically connecting to the best available standard.
Which operator?
While Orange and SFR, the two market leaders, are neck and neck in terms of coverage and customer base for 3G, the balance has shifted for 3.5G. SFR is betting heavily on this technology, which does not require any new network installations. "All the areas covered by 3G have undergone network upgrades and offer average speeds of 1 Mbps," explains Pierre-Yves Rallet. The option is billed at €5 a month on top of a standard 3G data subscription, the most attractive of which is a €70 monthly 500 MB package.
Orange is also in the running, but prefers to talk about 'mobile broadband' in the broadest sense. 3G+ has been less rapidly and systematically deployed, unlike wi-fi, on which Orange has concentrated its efforts. Bouygues Telecom, for its part, is suffering from the strategic decision not to pay for a UMTS licence made at the end of the 1990s. Bouygues Telecom is only just getting to grips with very high-speed broadband, in parallel with the 2.5G on which it had bet.
Adapted terminals
3G+ does not require any upheaval in the network, but it does require specific terminals. It is with a smartphone or a PC that the higher speed possibilities can really be exploited. Samsung and Taiwan's HTC were the first to make their move. Based on its experience in Korea, Samsung is now offering four compatible terminals, including the i600, a smartphone with a full keyboard that also has Wi-Fi. "The i600 lets you take full advantage of operator services and the guaranteed high speeds they offer," explains Julien Genétine, telephony product manager at Samsung. HTC, world leader in smartphones using the Windows Mobile operating system, is offering two devices. The first, the P3600, is also available from SFR under the reference S300+ and includes a GPS function. But it's the top-of-the-range X7500, a truly compact PC, that offers the most possibilities.
At the same time, SFR and Orange are offering PCMCIA format cards, which can be inserted into the corresponding port on standard laptop PCs, transforming them into 3G and 3G+ communicating terminals. As for owners of Bouygues Telecom PCMCIA cards, they will be able to switch from 2.5 to 3.5 G without changing their equipment, as cards distributed after May 2005 use both standards. But these cards are becoming less and less essential, as laptops are now incorporating them. Toshiba's Portégé R400 and Fujitsu Siemens' P7230, for example, allow 3G and 3G+ connections without the need for additional hardware.
3G+ or wi-fi?
Isn't wi-fi already known as nomadic or mobile broadband? The wireless Internet protocol delivers speeds of up to 1 Mbps, or as much as 3G+. In reality, the two technologies complement each other. "Wi-fi is designed for static use and offers random speeds, but it's comfortable and cheaper, sometimes free. 3G+ is more widely available, but more expensive", explains Julien Genétine. But with future developments, there is likely to be competition. HSDPA has not yet exhausted its resources. The networks installed are based on the 1.8 standard (for a theoretical maximum data rate of 1.8 Mbps). We are going to set up 3.6 coverage zones at major traffic points such as airports, railway stations and business centres," says Pierre-Yves Rallet. This new doubling of bandwidth will be transparent for SFR users. On the downside, to take advantage of this higher version, new terminals will be required, none of which are yet available. However, at the same time, the equipment manufacturers who supply the network infrastructure have just announced that they have installed more than 100 3G+ networks in 54 countries, including 30 in Europe. Very high-speed 3G+ is therefore accessible in most of the configurations available when travelling on business.
