Evaluation of HSDPA (3.5G) mobile link quality

The modern and dynamic world has imposed pressure on technologies to match the speed at which the world is moving. Responding to the challenge, third generation (3G) technologies have introduced a new era of mobility not only for cellular phones but also for broadband services. With the rise of high bandwidth demand applications, a number of challenges emerge. This paper presents results obtained while testing the performance of the 3.5 G wireless broadband in a number of scenarios to reflect the end userspsila experience. The test evaluates high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), a 3.5 G mobile technology, testing its link characteristics in different scenarios. During the test, four major link characteristics: latency, throughput, link stability and packet loss were tested. These are the characteristics that cause direct effects to the quality of service (QoS). The mobility features were also tested. The result shows that number of users highly affects QoS. To perform the test, the T-mobile of-the-shelf public available WebdasianpsilaWalk data card was used.