US : After extensive testing by operators in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific over the last six months, IPWireless announced the commercial shipment of its latest TD-CDMA chipset today, the first 3GPP chipset with full HSDPA implementation to ship in commercial devices for operators. The chipset, which first shipped in Q4 2004, takes advantage of 3GPP Release 5 functionality and the inherent advantages of TD-CDMA to deliver significantly better performance and economics for operators.

The new IPWireless chipset implements full HSDPA for devices, including 16QAM modulation to deliver far higher peak throughputs and higher overall usable capacity for each sector. The system can now deliver up to 9.7 Mbps throughput per sector. The increased throughput performance is achieved without affecting the coverage and high cell edge performance of TD-CDMA, or affecting mobile handoff between sectors. With TD-CDMA systems, the full sector cell edge throughput is available to a single user, increasing service levels that operators can offer. The new chipset also leverages the fact that TD-CDMA networks are fully packet-based on both the uplink and downlink to deliver packet based services to more users per sector. Current WCDMA HSDPA products are only packet-based on the downlink, meaning that the circuit switched architecture required for uplink will still artificially limit the number of users on the network and cause network congestion.

The new HSDPA chipset is already shipping in IPWireless’ plug-and-play PCMCIA cards and desktop modems for UMTS TDD networks in the 1900MHz, 2010MHz, 2500MHz, and 3400MHz bands. The HSDPA chipset is based on a System on Chip Architecture, enabling TD-CDMA HSDPA to be embedded in a range of very small and low power devices. The IPWireless TD-CDMA HSDPA chipset will also support the FDD TD-CDMA solution that will go into field trial in early 2005, delivering up to 14.5Mbps throughput per sector. The new chipset builds on TD-CDMA’s ability to enable a whole new realm of mobile, portable, and stationary services for subscribers.

“The availability of devices powered by the first 3GPP chipset with the full implementation of HSDPA is another reason that UMTS TDD is a critical part of a complete 3G solution,” said Dr. Bill Jones, chief operating officer, IPWireless. “With TD-CDMA HSDPA, operators ensure that they are maximizing their spectral assets to deliver the best mobile broadband solution to their subscribers while recognizing new revenue streams.”