icated on their desire for more capacity for voice and for higher achievable data rates. Japan, like other parts of Asia, did not hold auctions for spectrum for 3G services. Rather, many governments awarded spectrum based on beauty con- tests of the various carriers' qualifications. "Beauty contest" is a term commonly used for auctions that are focused more on the capabilities of providers than on the am ount of money bid. The lack of requirements to spend huge sums of capital on spectrum has left Asian companies with more resources to upgrade their networks. This afforded many Asian providers a head start in building advanced mobile networks. The largest expense in moving from GSM to WCDMA is new base stations. The higher-frequency spectrum needed for 3G means that many more base stations are needed because antennas for high frequencies cover smaller areas than those used in 2G and 2.5G networks. In Europe, GSM operates at 900MHz and WCDMA at 2. 1GHz. Because WCDMA is based on code-division access rather than time-division access, upgrades on GSM networks (based on time division) to full 3G services require new infrastructure equipment. 3.5 Technologies and the WCDMA Evolution WCDMA Release 5 includes High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which provides higher-speed data, increased capacity, and better Quality of Service (QoS) for data applications. It triples downlink throughput (the rate at which actual user data is carried) to the subscriber. In addition, Release 5 doubles capacity for voice traffic. HSDPA and its variations are 3.5-generation technologies. Because of its high downlink capacities, HSDPA enables applications such as music downloads, web browsing, and e-mail with large attachments. Data is carried as Internet Protocol (IP) packets between the base transceiver stations and the radio network controller. Release 5 also enables multimedia messaging such as receiving voicemail and e-mail on laptops. In conjunction with HSDPA, some carriers also implement High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA),