The Wirelessinfo Blog

Today, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association has announced that HSDPA technology is now live on 100 networks across the world, which include the following locations:

• Africa: Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania
• Americas: Canada, Chile, Puerto Rico and USA
• APAC: Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and 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, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and UK
  (HSDPA is commercially available in 25 of the 27 EU countries)
• Middle East: Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and UAE

75 of 147 HSDPA operators are also using GSM/ EDGE for better service quality. Some have also announced HSUPA or mobile broadband uplink capability as well.  Over 220 handset models now support HSDPA technology, with 160 of these just being announced over the last six months. 

What is HSDPA technology?  HSDPA stands for High Speed Downlink Packet Access, and is a 3G mobile telephony protocol that is part of the UMTS standard.  It supports 1.8 Mbit/s, 3.6 Mbit/s, 7.2 Mbit/s and 14.4 Mbit/s in downlink, and is expected to support 42Mbit/sec in the next release.  It also greatly enhances network capacity.  

The number of wireless customers reporting call quality issues has reached historically low levels according to a recent report by J.D Power and Associates. Wireless problems have decreased for the 3rd straight reporting wave for an overall 14% drop. The company attributes some of the improvement to 3G networks that are able to support things like "higher data speeds, always-on data access, and greater voice capacity."

The study goes as far to say that "problems occur at nearly one-half the PP100 rate when calls are placed or received using a 3G-enabled mobile device compared with calls made or received using lower-generation devices." The study doesn't isolate what particular handset users were using or where they were when they placed the call only the network, making the results inconclusive in our eyes.

[Via MobileTechNews]