Stuart Corner
Saturday, 21 October 2006 03:32
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Vodafone has launched its HSDPA service in Melbourne and Sydney under the name "3G Broadband" offering significantly higher download and upload speeds that its existing 3G data service but at the same prices.
Peak download speed is 1.8Mbps and Vodafone claims users will experience typically between 600kbps and 1.4Mbps. Upload speed is 384kbps, three times faster than the current 3G data service. However effective throughput will exceed these speeds for some types of data thanks to the use of compression and optimisation techniques built into the software client, Vodafone Mobile Connect, that supports the service.
Vodafone is squarely targeting small and medium business describing the service as "a key plank of our business strategy" and says that the initial service area will cover 45 percent of its business customers.
Dave McNaughton, Vodafone's head of business products, claimed the new service, which has been on
limited trial for several weeks with customers on Sydney's lower North Shore, would get an enthusiastic reception from business customers.
"We saw a huge step change in mobile workforce behaviour with the introduction of the 3G data service [just on a year ago]. Businesses untethered their laptops big time. Customers are lapping up the new service and talking about mobilising their whole work force," McNaughton siaid. "We are at a tipping point." He added that the increase in download speed was being welcomed as much as the increase in upload speed.
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