Portugal's Sonaecom Launches 21 Mbps HSPA+ with Huawei

Portugal's Sonaecom has launched a commercial HSPA+ mobile broadband service using Huawei's platform. The deployment uses 64 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) in the air interface to achieve a downlink data rate of up to 21.6 Mbps. To enhance Sonaecom' s existing UMTS network, Huawei provided an end-to-end solution with HSPA+ networks and customized mobile broadband modems. A technology trial was successfully carried out in June 2009. The trial phase has been supported by Huawei and Qualcomm and uses terminal equipment featuring Qualcomm' s MDM8200 HSPA+ chipset.


"Due to Huawei' s smooth introduction of HSPA+ on our existing network, the new technology can help us maintain our leading position in the Portuguese competitive market," said Mr. José Pinto Correia, CTO of Sonaecom. "This new technology will enable our customers to enjoy higher speed and higher quality mobile broadband services, while delivering more capacity to our network." 


As of Q2 of 2009, Huawei has deployed over 10 commercial HSPA+ networks worldwide.
http://www.huawei.com