www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With a view to assess HSPA as an alternative to DSL, Vodafone Spain has been conducting tests in the town of San Quirze del Valles, near Barcelona.
Exploding usage of broadband connections has made the operator to conduct this test which otherwise ran fixed and mobile services over a single cellular network. However, additional spectrum is required by WiMAX along with huge investments while the carrier is already struggling to see real ROI from 3G.
Vodafone is now hopeful that the latest upgrades to HSPA will make it more viable as a fixed technology and will be used as the backhaul for a Wi-Fi router. 100 households will be provided with HSPA modems and Wi-Fi access points, in a six-month pilot.
