HSDPA (UMTS accelerator)
HSDPA is the abbrevition of "High-Speed Downlink Packet Access" and is also being called "UMTS accelerator" by the ordinary people. Because HSDPA is faster then UMTS, it's denomination is "3,5G network". A lot of networks will "upgrade" (elevate) their UMTS network with the HSDPA technique on a short term, in order to provide their customers with even faster dataservices.
With the regular UMTS network, under the most ideal circumstances, download speeds up to 384 kb/s are possible. With HSDPA this speed can be upgraded to 14.4 Mb/s (under the most ideal circumstances), this makes HSDPA 38 times faster then the conventional UMTS network. With this, the speeds of HSDPA correspond to ADSL and cable connections.
Presently, T-Mobile is the only network in the Netherlands that equipped their entire UMTS network with HSDPA. In this moment, it's possible to gain a download speed up to 1,8 Mb/s (under ideal circumstances) with T-Mobile. In the future, T-Mobile wil upgrade this step-by-step to 3,6 Mb/s, and eventually to 14.4 Mb/s. Vodafone and KPN will also upgrade the existing UMTS network with the HSDPA technique on a short term. Orange also announced to provide their costumers with an HSDPA network sometime in the future.
With HSDPA it's possible to listen to streaming radio and watch streaming television on a high quality. Next to this, with a laptop or HSDPA compatible cellular phone (available at the third quarter of 2006), where ever a HSDPA network is active, you can use the internet with the same fast speeds you use at home or at the office.
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