Vodafone has rolled out high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) -- a higher speed version of 3G -- to a slew of new metropolitan areas in Australia, but rural users will have to wait for the same privilege.
The mobile operator has announced it has rolled out HSDPA across more cities, including greater metropolitan Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Adelaide and Perth. New South Wales's Central Coast is set to follow in September.
The expansion follows an initial flirtation with HSDPA late last year, which saw Vodafone deploy the technology in inner Sydney and Melbourne. Vodafone's HSDPA network now covers some 60 percent of the population, chiefly in urban areas.
Rural users are unlikely to be favoured with the same high-speed connectivity any time soon, however.
A spokesman said for users outside the cities, 2G will be Vodafone's main focus. "[Upgrades to 3G] ... that's the long term strategy. For the remainder of this year and next year, we're investing heavily in our 2G network and improving coverage and capability. We'll ramp up typically where it's demand based -- where there's the highest population density -- and you can expect that to continue."
He added that any further 3G deployments around the country will go straight to higher-speed HSDPA rather than the lower speed traditional 3G first. Under HSDPA, users are theoretically able to access download speeds of 3.6Mbps, although Vodafone reckons the average customer is more likely to access real downloads at between 600kpbs and 1.5Mbps.
Greater speeds are on the way for metro users, the mobile operator said, although no roadmap has yet been defined. "The highest-speed device we have at the moment is the USB modem, at 3.6Mbps. There aren't any other devices supporting 7.2 or 14.4Mbps," the spokesman said.
Vodafone's current network is likely to be upgraded to offer a downlink of up to 14.4Mbps at some point in the future. High-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA) is also on the operator's agenda, promising an uplink of up to 384Kbps, which Vodafone is hoping will attract heavy mobile e-mail users. It also plans to introduce a HSDPA-enabled Windows smartphone soon.
Meanwhile, the operator is in negotiations with Optus over extending a network sharing deal currently in place between the pair. Under the agreement, initially signed in 2004 for around AU$700 million, Optus and Vodafone share 3G base stations to cut network infrastructure cost.
Vodafone's spokesperson said: "The agreement goes until March 2008. We're in discussions; we've got a mutual interest to see where we go from here. The discussions would be focused around our existing investments in the 900Mhz and 2100Mhz [spectrum] band and that's what we're looking at how to upgrade. The most economic play would be how to put in additional software and bump up capacity."
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