HSPA+ Evolution to Release 12: Performance and Optimization

Foreword

Our industry has undergone massive change in the last few years and it feels like only yesterday that T-Mobile USA, and the industry as a whole, was offering voice centric services and struggling to decide what to do about “data.” Once the smartphone revolution started and consumption of new services literally exploded, wireless operators had to quickly overcome many new challenges. This new era of growth in the wireless industry continues to create great opportunity coupled with many new challenges for the wireless operators.

In my role of Chief Technical Officer at T-Mobile USA, I have enjoyed leading our company through a profound technology transformation over a very short period of time. We have rapidly evolved our network from a focus on voice and text services, to providing support to a customer base with over 70% smartphones and a volume of carried data that is growing over 100% year on year. At the time of writing, we offer one of the best wireless data experiences in the USA which is one of the fastest growing wireless data markets in the world. We provide these services through a combination of both HSPA+, and more recently, LTE technologies.

Many wireless operators today have to quickly address how they evolve their network. And with consumer demand for data services skyrocketing, the decision and choice of technology path are critical. Some operators may be tempted to cease investments in their legacy HSPA networks and jump straight to LTE. In our case, ...