O2 today announced a new first-to-market enhancement to its mobile broadband service, which now enables customers to upload content at broadband speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps, significantly faster than other similar services in the market. This new functionality will be of major benefit to both business and consumer users, enabling them to upload music, photos, and corporate documents quickly and easily on the move, and is in addition to the existing downloading capability of O2 Broadband, which now offers 7.2 Mbps functionality.

O2 Broadband is based on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology with 89% population coverage, and allows customers to wirelessly surf the internet whether they are at home, work, or out and about. Now O2 has become the first mobile broadband provider in the market to roll out HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), which means that broadband customers can now download and upload up to 10GB in total of data as standard per month on selected O2 Broadband devices*, with no additional charges for occasional usage in excess of this**.

Jude Lynch, Sales Director at O2 in Ireland, comments, “Last year O2 launched its mobile broadband service, which has proven extremely popular, with over 55,000 customers signed up to date. Now that our extensive network roll out project has concluded, equipping the network with 7.2 Mbps functionality, we are confident that O2 customers will experience the best mobile broadband service available in Ireland.”

“We are delighted to be the first mobile broadband provider in the country to offer upload functionality at broadband speeds. This is a result of the significant investment that we have made in our network over the past two years, and provides major benefits for our broadband customers who can now upload files, music, and photos much more conveniently, in addition to downloading content. For example a 5MB song can now be uploaded in as little as 40 seconds, where as previously it would have taken over two minutes.”

O2 Broadband is available through any O2 Retail store nationwide and online at www.o2.ie. For the months of July and August 2008, O2 is holding a summer sale offering broadband modems priced from €19.99, and monthly rental for €19.99. All prices are inclusive of VAT.

O2 offers a range of broadband devices which include both USB modems and handsets, and operates a happiness guarantee which enables customers to return the product within 30 days and get their money back, if for any reason they are not happy with it. Further information on O2 Broadband is available at www.o2.ie/broadband.

* The following O2 Broadband devices are HSUPA capable: USB Modem E270, USB Stick E170, and Express Card (E870)

** Subject to O2’s fair usage policy