Turkey’s market leading operator, Turkcell, has augmented its 3G networks, upgrading the HSPA architecture with dual-carrier HSPA+ technology. The dual-carrier technology can theoretically achieve peak speeds of 42Mb/s, which is double the speed of single channel HSPA+.
Turkcell’s Chief Network Operations Officer, Ilter Terzioglu, commented: “We will complete the update of our network as soon as possible…We are aiming to achieve higher mobile Internet revenues in accordance with the increasing smartphones as well as the higher data usage at faster speeds.”
Currently, the most widespread version of HSPA+ (64QAM) is capable of achieving peak download speeds of approximately 21Mb/s, but through dual-carrier and MIMO technology it is theoretically possible to achieve speeds four times faster than this.
Very few operators have made the transition to dual-carrier HSPA+, with Turkcell claiming it is one of only 10 – other deployments include Etisalat’s in Egypt, eMobile in Japan and Indosat’s in Indonesia.
Globally, there are currently over 300 HSPA networks; HSPA+ constitutes roughly 15 – 20% of these with 58 live networks.
