Following on the lead established by TeliaSonera with its launch of LTE later this year, 3 Scandinavia has committed to increase its HSPA-based download speeds from today's 21Mbps to 84Mbps.
The company said that it planned to make its Turbo-3G service available later this quarter, which will eventually involve a nationwide rollout in Denmark and four major cities in Sweden. The company said it was staying with HSPA and planned to take advantage of the combination of multicarrier implementation and MIMO smart antennas which is boosting the network's peak speeds so rapidly. HSPA+ can reach 28Mbps using MIMO only, but the addition of multicarrier has got it to 42Mbps already. Ericsson, which has been awarded the contract to supply the technology, has demonstrated that HSPA Evolution can reach 84Mbps, and says the technology can be stretched further over time, to beyond 100Mbps.
The three-year contract between Ericsson and 3 includes the HSPA Evolution capacity upgrade of its existing 3G network, via 42Mbps, to 84Mbps plus a new WCDMA/HSPA radio access network on the 900MHz frequency band. In addition, Ericsson is providing IP-based optical and microwave backhaul, and support services.
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