So, Vodafone is to roll out faster HSUPA mobile broadband in Germany rather than the UK. So what? Sneak hears you say, it's just another plot by the mobile operators to fleece the honest sons of toil in Albion, this time by creating a massive envy complex.

Imagine theoretical data download rates of around 7Mbit/s…, okay, maybe 5Mbit/s in reality. Your overseas 200MB download limit on Vodafone's new roaming data offer would be gone in just over five minutes at this speed.

A nasty problem for mobile operators implementing HSUPA will be managing when users can and can't transmit data. Constantly having to transmit so-called scheduling information is not recommended, but the standard also gives a method for the handset to transmit a single bit as to whether the base station can handle the next piece of data. This bit is called the happy bit, for obvious reasons.

It would be nice to be able to transmit to your mobile operator an “unhappy bit”, to indicate when you were totally fed up with their service. Unfortunately this is not on the standards roadmap.

18 Jul 2007