The technology inside the GlobeSurfer range. HSDPA and HSPA+ were the 3G standards that turned mobile broadband from a corporate curiosity into a genuine home connectivity option.
3G mobile networks launched in the UK with Three in March 2003. The underlying standard was UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), built on WCDMA radio access. Early UMTS delivered around 384Kbps - faster than dial-up, slower than ADSL. The step change came with HSDPA.
HSDPA was a software upgrade to UMTS - no new towers required. It shortened the transmission time interval from 10ms to 2ms and added adaptive modulation and coding, delivering a five-fold throughput improvement on the same spectrum. The GlobeSurfer III used HSDPA Category 8 - 7.2Mbps theoretical. In UK conditions on Three or Vodafone, 2-4Mbps was typical in 2007 - better than average UK ADSL at the time.
HSPA+ used 64-QAM modulation and MIMO techniques to push speeds to 21Mbps and with dual-carrier (DC-HSDPA) to 42Mbps. This is the technology inside the GlobeSurfer III+. Some operators marketed HSPA+ as "3.75G" - at 8-15Mbps real-world it was genuinely competitive with ADSL2+. For current multi-network SIM cards that use these bands as fallback, see multinetworksim.com.
| UMTS / W-CDMA | Up to 384 Kbps |
| HSDPA Cat 5 | 3.6 Mbps down |
| HSDPA Cat 8 | 7.2 Mbps (GlobeSurfer III) |
| HSUPA Cat 6 | 5.76 Mbps up |
| HSPA+ Cat 14 | 21.1 Mbps (GlobeSurfer III+) |
| HSPA+ DC Cat 24 | 42.2 Mbps down |
| Band 1 (B1) | 2100 MHz - primary 3G |
| Band 8 (B8) | 900 MHz - rural coverage |
| Channel Width | 5 MHz per carrier |
| Duplex | FDD |
LTE (4G) launched in the UK with EE in October 2012 using OFDMA rather than WCDMA - fundamentally different radio access delivering 50-150Mbps from day one. See our 4G LTE guide.