Successful HSDPA trial for 3UK

March 14, 2006

3UK announced a successful trial of High Speed Downlink Packet Access ("HSDPA") on its 3G network in the UK.

HSDPA significantly improves the data speeds that can be delivered over a mobile data network. It is just the first of a number of technological advances that are within the 3G standard which can be rolled out incrementally over 3's existing 3G network. HSDPA will give customers a greater quality and range of communication, and information services. As well as delivering much higher data speeds, HSDPA also makes more efficient use of radio spectrum, delivering capacity more cost effectively.

The trial, which has been running for the last four months, has already delivered speeds of up to 1.4 million bits per second, over three times faster than current 3G speeds and more than forty times faster than GPRS.

The first voice and data downloads on HSDPA were performed over 3's network in Maidenhead. The trial, conducted on Nokia and NEC infrastructure, will be extended to selected urban areas in May and 3 will implement HSDPA in its commercial network in the second half of 2006.

HSDPA works by using a more advanced radio modulation scheme and this, combined with a more efficient radio network design, delivers the higher data rates.

David Cooper, Chief Technical Officer 3 UK said: "3 has led the development of 3G in the UK and with this successful trial we are leading the development of HSDPA. HSDPA will bring a range of benefits to our customers including faster download speeds, higher quality content and easy transfer of larger files. HSDPA will allow us to continue offering our customers the best new services first, over the largest and most advanced 3G network in the UK. Our objective for 2006 and beyond is to continue to have the best 3G network in the UK, HSDPA is the next step."