Europe speeds towards HSDPA deployment

Nokia believes that moving to HSDPA will be quick and easy

The transition from 3G to the faster High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) mobile data system will be much faster than the transition from GSM to 3G, a Nokia spokesman said today at the firm's Mobility Conference 2005 in Barcelona. 

Speaking exclusively to vnunet.com Nokia's vice president of radio sales, Robert Lindhal, said that he was confident that the transition from 3G to HSDPA, which can provide up to 10Mbps data download speeds, will be much faster than the move to 3G.

"It's a smaller step from GRPS to 3G," he explained. "It's mainly a software upgrade, so it's a lot less trouble. You'll need to add a little hardware channel cards as well but it shouldn't be too hard."

Lindhal said that the key drivers for 3G adoption were competition and investment in network infrastructure.

He highlighted the role of operator 3 in starting with a 3G network from scratch and forcing other mobile providers to speed up 3G development as a result.

Regulatory requirements were also key, according to Lindhal. Sweden's government insisted on higher speeds for 3G than countries in southern Europe which had helped 3G adoption.