So I don't want to be the dummy in the group but???

[zobisch]

I was under the impression that 4g Wireless was still in the
theoretical stages??

I mean, obviously there will be new designs and improvements that will
go beyond 3g but every market I know that is deplying UMTS this year
(Cingular) is only deploying one T1 per sector at best... So even if
your RAN, Node B's and switching are up for doesn't mean that they've
really looked at the bigger problem of bandwidth.

[app]

Actually it is very hard to imagine, that a bottleneck could be
anywhere except in the air interface, with the current QPSK modulation,
3,84 MHz chip rate, and CDMA coding which makes the current aggregate
throughput summed over all users in one tranceiver (or 5 MHz frequency
band in one sector) to be in the order of 1 Mbit/s, less than your T1
line.

With 16-PSK and HSDPA etc. you will have more bandwith, but by that
time you will have more ATM bandwith also, or perhaps a cheap 1 Gbit/s
Ethernet. Note that for the SGSN and GGSN connections shared by
hundreds or thousands of base stations you can easily afford to by all
the bandwith the radio network could ever consume, and the upgrade to 1
Gbit/s or 10 Gbit/s Ethernet from ATM is trivial there, only a few
links need to be upgraded.

I know from a knowledgeable source, that GPRS backbone loads in the
world currently are not anywhere near their capacity. I don't see this
changing with the network evolution to 3G, and to further releases.

[zobisch]

You missed my point man... I know that the technology is there in the
UMTS/HSDPA to carry huge amounts of data of teh air interface.... But
the carriers are not deploying enough backhaul from the Node B to the
RAN.

And as for your comment about GPRS... I do consulting right now for
Cingular and we are constantly adding T1's for EDAP pool's which are
what feed your EDGE data throughput.

The BOTTLENECK is between the Switch and the BTS man.