14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that we should soon be able to see mobile broadbands that would provide transfer speeds comparable to those offered by wired networks. At least this is what Vodafone's latest HSPA+ trials are meant to suggest. From what we've heard, the company managed to successfully complete a trial of its next-generation packet data technology. The carrier's mobile network in Spain is reported to have achieved impressive “actual peak download rates of up to 16Mb/s.”
Vodafone's HSPA+ technology has been built around the 64 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) technology, which has been developed by Ericsson and Qualcomm, as well as on the MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna system similar to the one used on the 802.11n wireless networks. According to the trial results, the new technology is able to provide transfer speeds much higher than those offered by the standard HSDPA, which is currently used in 3G networks in the country.
The company stated that end users were more likely not to achieve full 16Mb/s data transfer rates, yet the technology would be able to provide them with a speed of 4Mb/s quite easily. At the same time, Vodafone also admits that in certain “good conditions” speeds of up to 13Mb/s for services such as video download would be easily achieved.
What seems to harden the deployment of the new standard would be the fact that it requires new equipment to be purchased both by the user and by the network. On the other hand, the company announced that it was testing a range of new tools for the technology.
Vodafone did not announce a specific launch date for the new standard, and we might have to wait a little before seeing such impressive broadband speeds from our mobile handsets. At the same time, some voices suggest that the company should take caution so as not to see its technology outdated even before its launch. According to the news, the Australian mobile service provider Telstra already deployed an HSPA+ service able to offer theoretical speeds of up to 21Mb/s. Moreover, the company announced plans to double the speed to 41Mb/s before the end of the year.