Who needs 3.5G?
(...waving my arms...) I do!
3.5G, technically known as HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), has arrived. HSDPA gives you mobile data download speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps, compared to 384 kbps for 3G. HSDPA is now available to the general public in Singapore. You'll have it soon in your city too.
Why do I need 3.5G?
Download large email attachments: I'm using 3G on my laptop. Every time somebody sends me a multi-megabyte attachment, my email client freezes for a few minutes, downloading the large attachment via 3G. I need 3.5G to work more productively.
Upload large files: Some months back I produced a live "blogcast" on Singapore's Orchard Road shopping belt. I camped there for a few days, captured the event every hour with my Sony hi-def camcorder, edited the video on the spot and uploaded it to my video-podcast website via 3G. Uploading large video files via 3G was painfully slow, even after reducing the video resolution.
With 3.5G I can upload large files a lot more quickly. Since the bandwidth is now available, I can choose to upload high-def videos instead of low resolution ones. I may even consider doing a live video transmission and edit the video from my office.
Now that 3.5G is here, think about the bandwith-intensive applications that you can run on this faster mobile data network.