3 pledges 14.4Mb/s HSDPA in 2010

Upload speeds to be upped to 5.7Mb/s

By James Sherwood • Get more from this author

14th November 2008 07:02 GMT

Faster HSDPA and HSUPA 3G speeds will be rolled out in the UK’s big cities in 2010, network operator 3 has promised.

Areas already covered by 3.6Mb/s HSDPA

The company will initially give customers in London and other major metropolitan areas access to HSDPA speeds of up to 14.4Mb/s by Q3 2010.

It’s also promised that big cities will get 5.7Mb/s HSUPA speeds at the same time.

3's pending 7.2Mb/s HSDPA upgrade

However, senior 3 executive Hugh Davies couldn’t confirm how long it will be before customers living in more rural areas of the country get the same HSDPA and HSUPA speeds.

3 has already completed a rollout to give more than 95 per cent of the UK's population access to 3.6Mb/s HSDPA. It hopes to raise that speed to 7.2Mb/s by 2010 – the same time that the big cities get 14.4Mb/s HSDPA and 5.7Mb/s HSUPA.