Nokia insists WiMax will not kill 3G

Nokia has stressed that its recent decision to back WiMax wide area wireless broadband networking will not diminish its commitment to 3G mobile technology.

"When we made the WiMax announcement on Friday I was asked by many people if this means that Nokia is no longer as keen on 3G as it once was," said Simon Beresford-Wylie, executive vice president of Nokia networks.

"In fact 3G is very complementary to WiMax and will not form a replacement service."

Beresford-Wylie explained that Nokia sees WiMax as essentially a data-only transfer medium that would be used primarily in metropolitan areas with 3G services handling voice traffic.

Nokia has also been detailing its plans to speed up mobile data traffic to at least 14Mbps.

Initially the mobile giant will work on optimising the existing 3G standard, which currently delivers data speeds of about 384Kbps, so that by the end of the year speeds of 1-2Mbps to the handset will be possible in some areas.

Looking further into the future, when the 3G and WiMax standards coexist, the company is looking for data speeds of up to 14Mbps.

But the company also plans to integrate other radio technologies that will provide specific data usage models for specific applications.

High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) can provide general data speeds of up to 8-10Mbps and will use the same network as 3G services, albeit at the 5MHz spectrum only. There are currently 21 HSDPA sites in operation around the world.

In March Nokia also launched High Speed Uplink Packet Access, which has uplink speeds of up to 5.7Mbps and is designed for online gamers. This will be offered at the end of this year or beginning of 2006.

These standards will be merged into a larger standard, known as 3.9G, or Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network Long Term Evolution.

The 3.9G standard is to be finalised in mid-2007 and peak data rates are targeted to reach up to 100Mbps in the downlink and 50Mbps in the uplink.