3.7 Per-user Throughput in Downlink

As has been shown in this chapter, achieving peak data rates of B3G systems by a mobile device is getting less and less likely. This is due to the continuously rising signal-to-noise ratio requirements for reaching these data rates.

In addition, the maximum throughput achieved by a mobile device depends on the following factors:

• The capabilities of the device itself.
• The number of other users and their activity (e.g. voice calls) in the cell.
• Maximum percentage of overall bandwidth that can be assigned to a single user – previously, terminals and networks were designed to use only a fraction of the cell’s overall bandwidth for a single connection; B3G networks, however, can assign the majority of the bandwidth to a single mobile device if no other users are currently transmitting or receiving data in a cell.