Hong Kong’s SmarTone-Vodafone has upgraded its network with HSPA+ technology, enabling the operator to deliver peak downlink speeds of up to 28.8 Mbps. To coincide with the move, the company has launched its new Power 28 price plan, which is offered as a free upgrade to all existing Power 21 customers. At the same time, SmarTone-Vodafone has activated the first HSPA+ Dual Carrier 42 Mbps base stations, also with its partner vendor Ericsson, and plans to roll out the technology across its entire network.

SmarTone-Vodafone today launches its latest HSPA+ network upgrade, delivering peak network speed of 28.8 Mbps for wireless broadband services. This latest enhancement enables SmarTone-Vodafone to launch its new Power 28 price plan, providing the fastest mobile broadband speeds in Hong Kong for its customers.

"This latest upgrade of our HSPA+ network demonstrates our continuing leadership in the development of broadband services in Hong Kong," said Mr. Douglas Li, CEO of SmarTone-Vodafone.

"Our powerful network can now manage even larger volumes of data traffic with the increased transmission capacity and continue to provide the highest HSPA+ speeds in town. The increase in capacity handling will further improve our customers’ experience on mobile broadband, wireless fixed broadband, and smartphones, fully unleashing the power of the Internet to enrich our customers’ lives.”

SmarTone-Vodafone is offering a free upgrade to its new Power 28 price plan for all existing Power 21 customers automatically, together with a free firmware upgrade for their USB modems. For $388 per month, customers can enjoy typical usable speeds of 2-20 Mbps and get the best possible performance from the network. Power 7 and Power 3 plans will continue to be offered to meet the different needs of customers. SmarTone-Vodafone is strongly committed to the disclosure of typical usable speeds likely to be experienced by customers, as opposed to peak network speed that users can never actually reach.

Some bandwidth is inevitably used for signalling and performance control management and actual connection speeds are also affected by external factors such as the relative position between users and the base station, download server source, Internet traffic conditions, number of users, computer hardware, software and many other significant factors. SmarTone-Vodafone is strongly supportive of OFTA’s current initiative to increase transparency across the whole broadband market.

“SmarTone-Vodafone is at the forefront of revolutionising the way consumers use wireless broadband to enrich their daily lives.” said Laurence McDonald, President of Ericsson Hong Kong & Macau.

“Ericsson is proud to provide our multi-standard radio base stations and HSPA+ solution with MIMO and Dual Carrier technologies to SmarTone-Vodafone. With these enabling technologies, SmarTone-Vodafone continues to support unsurpassed Internet access speeds, and more of its customers can consistently enjoy faster Internet access with the increased capacity, thereby giving SmarTone-Vodafone an unparalleled advantage over its competitors.”

“Our network already supports Dual Carrier technology that can achieve peak network speed of 42
Mbps and typical usable speeds of 2-30 Mbps" adds Mr. Li. "Today we are activating the first base stations with this Dual Carrier technology from our partner Ericsson, and the roll-out will continue across our whole network. The increased capacity and speed will be put into service when compatible devices become available. Our implementation of Ericsson’s new generation of multi-mode multi-standard base stations will smooth the way to providing peak network speed of 84 Mbps, supporting an even greater number of users in the future, as well as accommodating the upgrade to LTE. We remain firmly committed to delivering the best broadband service with wireless technology, so our customers can enjoy unrivalled convenience, superb reliability, and super high speeds anywhere in Hong Kong. This ensures our customers stay better connected, better informed and better entertained than ever before and we know they will love the difference.”