GSMA: World Tops 400 Million HSPA Connections

At the opening of this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSMA today announced that HSPA Mobile Broadband connections have increased by 100 percent year-on-year, passing 400 million globally.


There are now more than 17 million HSPA connections being added each month around the world, compared to nearly 9 million a month in the same period last year.


The GSMA expects that there will be 4.2 million LTE connections in 24 countries by the end of this year, and that this number will rise to almost 300 million connections in 55 countries by 2015.


"Over the past 12 months operators around the world have invested more than $70 billion in Mobile Broadband infrastructure and network upgrades, driving strong momentum for HSPA and paving the way for LTE to gain real traction," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA. "HSPA has achieved great success since it was first deployed in 2005, and to date is the fastest-growing wireless technology ever. 2011 is also set to be the tipping point for LTE, with network deployments in 24 countries and the commercial availability of the first LTE-based smartphones and tablets driving more than four million connections."http://www.gsmworld.com