High Speed Packet Access - Dual-Cell HSDPA (DC-HSDPA)

Dual-Cell HSDPA (DC-HSDPA)

Dual-Cell HSDPA, part of 3GPP Release 8, is the natural evolution of HSPA by allowing a user to connect to two cells at once, thereby theoretically doubling the connection speeds for the user. An HSPA+ network can theoretically support up to 28 Mbit/s and 42 Mbit/s with a single cell although real life speeds are far lower. Besides the throughput gain from doubling the number of cells to be used, some diversity and joint scheduling gains can also be achieved. Dual-cell can particularly improve the QoS (Quality of Service) for end users in poor radio reception where they cannot benefit from the other WCDMA capacity improvements (MIMO and higher order modulations) due to poor radio signal quality. From Release 9 onwards it will be possible to use DC-HSDPA in combination with MIMO. The support of MIMO in combination with DC-HSDPA will allow operators even more capacity improvements within their network.