More than 80% of mobile operators worldwide continue to invest in 3G, with total 3G connections globally expected to exceed long-term evolution (LTE) up until 2020.
This is according to the Global Mobile Suppliers' Association's (GSA's) latest update of the HSPA Operator Commitments report, which lists all HSPA and HSPA+ network commitments, deployments and launches worldwide.
According to the GSA, there were more than 1.83 billion WCMDA-HSPA subscriptions globally by the fourth quarter of 2014.
Here are the latest key findings from the GSA's HSPA report:
1. There are 600 HSPA operator network commitments in 217 countries/territories.
2. There are 582 commercially launched networks in 216 countries.
3. All of the world's WCDMA operators have commercially launched HSPA services.
4. More than 69% of HSPA operators have commercially launched HSPA+ systems.
5. 404 HSPA+ networks have been commercially launched in 168 countries.
6. 182 DC-HSPA+ (dual channel) networks ? more than 31% of all HSPA networks ? have been commercially launched in 92 countries.
7. Most 3G/HSPA systems use 2.1GHz spectrum (3GPP band 1). However, UMTS900 is also mainstream: 96 operators in 60 countries commercially launched UMTS900 in either a single band or multiband network deployment.
As defined by Webopedia, HSPA - or high speed packet access - is a set of mobile telephony protocols that includes two popular standards: HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) and HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access).
HSDPA is a packet-based data service feature of the WCDMA standard (wide-band code-division multiple access, a 3G technology that increases data transmission rates). HSDPA provides a downlink with data transmission up to 8-10Mbps.
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