The high speed 3G offering from Vodafone will be capable of delivering theoretical download speeds up to four times faster than 3G at 1.8Mbps. Users can expect to experience speeds of around 1.4 Mbps.
The Swedes have already upgraded the network's infrastructure to support 1.8Mbit/s in 17 UK towns and cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton.
Vodafone has not released a date for it yet, but the 14.4Mbit/s HSDPA will be deployed into operator networks when the operators are ready, said Ericsson UK managing director Jacqueline Hey.
There won't be any addditional network coverage as the hardware and software HSDPA upgrades are happening at existing base stations. Hey added It will reduce latency on current 3G connections, and minimise delays and errors. Thats almost an integral feature of how HSDPA is designed.
Paul Wybrow, chief technology officer for Vodafone UK, said: "This is another significant step in our long-standing partnership with Ericsson. We understand that more and more of our customers need to be able to work away from the office and access critical applications and download and transfer heavy files as they would in the office. This improved 3G technology presents our customers with a real mobile broadband experience".