VODAFONE-SAMSUNG ALLIANCE
[BIZ/SCI-TECH: Düsseldorf, December 29] From next year Vodafone will provide a high-speed cellular service in Europe, using the faster UMTS - High-Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA. This is a new mobile telephony protocol. Also called 3.5G (or "3½G"). HSDPA is a packet-based data service with data transmission up to 8-10 Mbit/s (and 20 Mbit/s for MIMO systems) over a 5MHz bandwidth in W-CDMA downlink - a type of 3G cellular network. The HSDPA Standard makes it possible to download a film from the Web in one to two minutes. Vodafone and its partners assume that customers will be prepared to pay more for cellular services which allow video-conferencing and downloads at 7 times the current UTMS speeds. Gartner, the world's leading provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, calculates that sales of these cell phones will rise from 6.9m next year to 102m through 2009. Cingular Wireless, the biggest in the US, started a comparable service this month and plans to expand it next year.
The German business paper ‘Handelsblatt’ reports from Seoul, that the Vodafone Group, the world's largest wireless carrier, is going to offer UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) services in Europe with South Korea’s Samsung and California-based Qualcomm: Samsung will provide the cell phones and Qualcomm the chips.
http://www.handelsblatt.com