Vodafone Spain has doubled its 3G UMTS throughput in the 900MHz spectrum with deployment of dual-band High Speed Downlink Packet Access (DB-HSDPA) technology from Huawei.
Huawei and Vodafone said today the technology was live in Spain, delivering “approximately double” the amount of UMTS throughput compared to single carrier on UMTS 900MHz. The pair claimed it was a world first.
Peng Honghua, President of Huawei’s UMTS Product Line, said: “Huawei and Vodafone have cooperated closely to ensure the successful commercial deployment of DB-HSDPA. We will endeavor to assure the provision of innovative solutions, and accelerate the pace and scale of DB-HSDPA’s commercial application to benefit more subscribers.”
DB-HSDPA is a 3GPP Release 9-defined technology. DB-HSDPA capable terminals are able to receive and monitor two bands simultaneously, delivering a better user experience.
The DB-HSDPA work is focused on expanding mobile broadband capacity in Spain.
The close partnership between Vodafone and Huawei has been more active recently in developing 5G solutions. Last month, the pair trialled LTE TDD, including 4×4 MIMO and beamforming technology, in Manchester, with an eye on the growth in video and virtual reality applications.
They also tested MIMO technology at Vodafone UK’s Newbury campus last month, using a trial radio system at 70GHz to enable maximum single user speeds of 20GBps.
Vodafone and Huawei joined a 10-strong consortium, which also included KPN and Ericsson, in a 5G project in the province of North Groningen, in the Netherlands, in June. A Dutch testbed is focused on 5G research for self-driving cars and the monitoring of crop diseases, among other sectors.