GSA Says HSDPA Launched in 50 Countries

GSA - the Global mobile Suppliers Association, says that 138 mobile network operators have committed to HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) deployments in 63 countries, and commercial HSDPA mobile broadband services are now available in 50 countries. Recent launches by Entel PCS, Chile (the first in Latin America) and MTC, Namibia raised the number of commercial HSDPA networks to 91. HSDPA commercial services are now available in the following countries:

Americas: Canada, Chile and USA

APAC: Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Madeira, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and UK

(HSDPA is commercially available in 22 of the 25 EU countries)

Middle East/Africa: Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and UAE

Most HSDPA networks are delivering typical data throughputs to customers of 0.8 - 1.5 Mbps. The GSA survey confirms that 25 operators are supporting 3.6 Mbps peak data throughput in all or part of their networks. Many networks will boost peak data speeds next year to 14.4 Mbps, and the first HSUPA deployments from 1H 2007 will significantly boost uplink speeds.

GSA also confirms from its related "HSDPA Devices" survey that there are now 120 HSDPA-enabled devices launched in the market, comprising:

• 45 phones
• 31 PC cards/modules
• 30 HSDPA-equipped notebooks
• 9 wireless routers/gateway products
• 4 USB modems
• 1 Personal Media Player

40 of the 91 commercial HSDPA networks have also launched EDGE for service continuity. Most HSDPA devices also support GSM/EDGE. The number of WCDMA subscribers (including HSDPA) is rapidly approaching 100 million, confirming WCDMA-HSDPA as the leading 3G standard globally. According to further research by GSA, over 500 models of WCDMA user devices have been announced, with over 230 products launched in 2006."

Posted to the site on 19th December 2006