By Colin Barker
Thursday, December 29 2005 11:28 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39301568,00.htm

Vodafone, Samsung and Qualcomm on Wednesday announced a deal to deliver handsets that use the latest high-speed data packet access (HSDPA) technology to the European market next year.

The phones will be made by Samsung using a Qualcomm chip set. Vodafone is the first network provider to agree to take the Samsung phones. The financial details of the deal have not been released.

Super 3G, or high-speed data packet access (HSDPA), is an enhancement to today's 3G networks that offers the promise of much faster connectivity.

Last week, Nortel said a live HSDPA datacard had achieved a transmission rate of 3.6Mbps in test conditions. The company claimed this was the first time that such a high transmission rate had been demonstrated. The datacard used in the test was based on the Qualcomm MSM6280 chipset.

Europe's first HSDPA network was opened on the Isle of Man last month by O2. ZDNet UK carried out tests on O2's network after it launched and measured a peak download speed of 1.29Mbps, with an average of 480Kbps over a 10 minute period.

According to a statement released by Samsung, Gartner predicts that sales of HSDPA handsets will reach 6.3 million next year and will jump to 102 million by 2009.