Huawei & Vodafone Spain claim world’s first implementation of dual-band HSDPA

Huawei and Vodafone Spain have claimed the world’s first commercial implementation of dual-band HSDPA technology.

The solution, which doubles the amount of UMTS throughput compared to single carrier on UMTS 900MHz, contributes to a wider pan-European UMTS strategy, to ensure end-to-end interoperability. Ensuring the co-operation of UMTS 900MHz and UMTS 2100MHz is a factor in this strategy.

Huawei claims chipsets that support DB-HSDPA technology have been incorporated into commercial devices from the second half of last year. Terminals capable of DB-HSDPA are able to receive and monitor two bands simultaneously.

“Huawei and Vodafone have cooperated closely to ensure the successful commercial deployment of DB-HSDPA,” said Peng Honghua, President of Huawei’s UMTS Product Line. “We will endeavour to assure the provision of innovative solutions, and accelerate the pace and scale of DB-HSDPA’s commercial application to benefit more subscribers.”

The pair has a history of collaborating, after claiming the first successful commercial trial of pre-standard NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things) in Spain, at the end of last year. As many IoT devices will be embedded, the need to reduce the amount of power required is an on-going conversation within the industry.