Ericsson and 3 Can Provide 5.8 Mbps HSPA Upload Speeds in Italy

Ericsson and 3 Italia (Italy's 3) recently announced they have established a cutting-edge 3.5G HSPA commercial network that allows data transfer speeds of up to 5.8 Mbps in uplink. This achievement is an important step towards the deployment of an HSPA Evolution network.

With uplink transfer speeds of 5.8 Mbps, end users will be able to enjoy greatly improved performances in all the 3G services offered by 3 Italia, including online gaming, video conferencing, mobile Web and email and so on.

Among the 3G handsets that are currently in 3 Italia's offering, there are Nokia N82, Nokia N95, LG Viewty and LG U960, hence users have quite nice devices to test the new speedy network on.

Talking about the fruitful collaboration with Ericsson, Vincenzo Novari, Chief Executive Officer of 3 Italia, stated: "This world-first achievement reaffirms our commitment to accelerating the development of the mobile broadband market."

Cesare Avenia, President of Ericsson Italy, also stated: "This achievement is a strong proof of the excellent service capabilities of Ericsson, which has the responsibility for the overall management of 3 Italia's network."

And finally, we have to also give the statement of Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio, Ericsson, who said: "With this world-first achievement we underline Ericsson's technology leadership in the mobile broadband area. We thank 3 Italia for the close co-operation to reach this milestone."

Owned by the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, 3 Italia is the fourth largest Italian mobile operator, behind TIM, Vodafone and Wind. Even so, 3 is the first carrier when it comes to the number of 3G subscribers, serving about 8 million users with its UMTS / HSDPA network.

Best known for having only 3G (UMTS / HSDPA) networks across Europe, Hutchison's 3 is among the few operators that do not make direct use of the 2G technology, which is now the most popular one on the old continent.