UMTS Forum Report 39, March 2005

Introduction

The UMTS Forum, in association with Analysys Research, forecasts that High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) will become the world's leading 3G Mobile technology and will have almost one billion active users by 2012.

This report quantifies how the improvements offered by HSPA technology will stimulate the market for 3G data services. HSPA offers improvements in communications from both the end-user to the networks (often referred to as High Speed Downlink Packet Access) as well as from the network to the end-user (often referred to as High Speed Uplink Packet Access). In particular HSPA will offer;

- Improved speed of access up to 14.4Mbps to the terminal,
- Improved interactivity through minimised packet delays,
- And improved network capacity to support more 3G users.

The report looks at how HSPA will improve the operators' ability to deliver advanced applications such as;

- Mobile TV and video services,
- Music Downloads,
- Advanced Business Applications.

As well as quantifying the demand for these applications, the report also estimates how HSPA will modify the user behaviour.

Based on the research and modelling carried out for the report, the UMTS Forum anticipates that HSPA will generate €56bn in supplementary revenue for mobile operators through stimulating data ARPUs by 2012

Overall the report forecasts that 3G mobile data revenues will increase from €17bn in 2006 to over €120bn in 2012.

The report highlights a number of the key drivers for operators to upgrade existing 3G networks to HSPA or to build greenfield HSPA networks. These include;

- Support for a broad range of services,
- Immediate availability of spectrum in the majority of markets,
- A low risk upgrade path from UMTS today to HSDPA and then to HSUPA,
- A significantly lower cost per bit when compared with other 3GPP technologies.