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Within a week of Telecom completing its upgrade to its mobile data network, Vodafone has announced it will be ramping up speeds on its network.
Vodafone yesterday announced it would begin a technology upgrade in the New Year which would enable customers to download at average speeds of between 2 to 5 megabits per second and upload at speeds of around 1 megabit per second - approximately twice the speed of its current network.
Vodafone's general manager of products, Kursten Shalfoon, said work on the HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) upgrade would begin in April, saying the increased network speed made mobile data access more useful, particularly for web-based services.
Pricing for the high-speed data plans is expected to be in line with current plans which range from $49.95 for 1GB to $79.95 for 3GB.
Shalfoon said it was estimated that over the next five years businesses would almost double the amount of money they spent on keeping their workforce in touch while out on the job. Business people were using mobile devices, including phones, laptops and personal digital assistants, to check email and make appointments.
The next big step would be in areas such as customer relationship management applications which would allow companies to update customer information on the road at the same time as updating it back at the office, said Shalfoon.
He said the technology upgrade would also apply to the 900MHz network the company would begin building next year, extending its 3G coverage in rural areas.
Telecom have just finished an $18.5 million upgrade to its CDMA network. The upgrade promises average enable download speeds of 800 kilobits per second and upload speeds of 300Kbps accessible to 80 per cent of the population.
The company has begun work on a $300 million wideband CDMA (WCDMA) mobile network due to go live in 2008. Both networks will run concurrently for at least five years.