According to GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, operators are quickly upgrading to  42 Mbps dual cell HSPA+ ( 42 Mbps) systems. GSA’s latest Global HSPA+ Network Commitments and Deployments report confirms that 39 commercial DC-HSPA+ networks have been launched, an increase of 70% compared to the figure reported three months earlier. At least another 26 DC-HSPA+ networks are in deployment or planned.

DC-HSPA+ systems combine 64QAM modulation and double the bandwidth by using dual carriers (2×5 MHz = 10 MHz). This capability was introduced by 3GPP in the Release 8 specifications, and enables a theoretical peak downlink data throughput capability of 42 Mbps. For the uplink, using 16 QAM instead of QPSK modulation makes it possible to double the peak rate to 11.5 Mbps. DC-HSPA+ further extends the uplink performance up to 23 Mbps peak.

As per GSA, there are now 410 commercial HSPA operators, confirming that every WCDMA operator worldwide has implemented and commercially launched HSPA on their networks. Since its first commercial launch in February 2009, HSPA+ (HSPA Evolved) has become a mainstream technology. A total of 193 operators have committed to HSPA+ network deployments in 83 countries. 136 HSPA+ systems have been commercially launched in 69 countries, meaning that 1 in 3 HSPA operators have now deployed HSPA+ on their networks.

Analysis of GSA’s data confirms that two-thirds of DC-HSPA+ network operators have also firmly committed to commercial LTE network deployments.