The major trend in the broadband access arena today is the rapid growth of higher and higher bit-rate service offers. This appetite for bit-rate is fuelled by video applications, peer to peer exchange and 3D gaming, to mention only a few.
It is generally accepted that whilst such uses are today limited to a select few, they are going to be widely adopted by the public in the near future and need to be supported in the next generation networks and their associated terminals.
The rapid growth that we see today is mainly supported by wired network technologies but, it is clear that wireless technologies will need to be integrated into a harmonized network architecture if we are to offer genuine broadband capability to all users irrespective of their geographical location.
Another major trend is the growing requirement for access by nomadic users, which translates into a generalized use of wireless terminals for addressing all categories of needs. Combination of these trends is pushing the market to develop new technologies, capable of providing higher wireless bandwidth per user, whilst using the scarce wireless spectrum resources more efficiently.
