OYSTER BAY, N.Y.—While the industry looks ahead to W-CDMA and HSDPA technologies, EDGE handsets will quietly deliver “near-acceptable” mobile broadband experiences across a wide geographic area, according to ABI Research. The firm projects that vendors will ship as many as 148 million EDGE handsets this year—totaling about 14 percent of the global handset market—and suggested that the industry pay closer attention to the technology.
Although EDGE often is viewed as merely an evolutionary step in GSM technology, it has an important role in delivering services for carriers without 3G licenses or for those waiting for 4G, ABI said.
“When the prospects for EDGE are viewed in the context of next generation networks, its true value comes to light,” said Stuart Carlaw, ABI’s principal analyst. “The technology still represents the only viable choice for supporting seamless service delivery on a very wide area basis. Neither WiMAX nor LTE nor HSUPA will be rolled out with enough geographic coverage to guarantee minimum service requirements on a wide scale.”
