Ericsson's HSDPA live in 15 countries

In all these 15 countries, the solution is live on commercial hardware and software, providing data speeds up to 3.6Mbps in the downlink. Operators worldwide are today exploring 3G/HSDPA-enabled services, as preparation for fast commercial launches. Carl-Henric Svanberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, says: "We have received positive reactions from our customers to the opportunity to explore the mobile broadband possibilities of HSDPA at an early stage. There are now 15 live HSDPA systems, with ongoing evaluations of applications. This strengthens my belief that we will see many successful HSDPA launches during 2006, based on our solution." In addition, Ericsson recently upgraded Cingular's UMTS/WCDMA network to HSDPA, making the operator the first in the world to offerservices over a commercial HSDPA network. Another important milestone was passed earlier this month when Ericsson upgraded Vodafone KK's commercial network in central parts of Tokyo to support HSDPA. HSDPA, the next step in the evolution of WCDMA, enables download data speeds of up to 14.4Mbps, offers operators more than double the system capacity and makes the response time for interactive services faster. Mobile broadband with access anywhere to e-mail, on-line music and video, internet-services and mobile TV will fully exploit the capabilities that HSDPA provides and make these mass-market services.