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HSDPA: another hot topic in Cannes (France). HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access. 'Super 3G' as it is sometimes called, is the first major enhancement to the W-CDMA 3G standard to achieve higher data rates (up to 10 Mbit/s) and lower delay on the radio downlink. It will be critical to the success of services such as mobile TV, video and high-speed Internet access. The technology is almost ready, but the main problem is still the availability of related handsets. HSDPA-enabled chipsets are announced by companies such as Freescale, IPWireless, Sierra Wireless, Qualcomm, and others. First deployments, mainly for trial purpose, are launched with Vodafone (in Japan), Hutchinson 3G, Orange, Cingular, MMO2 and eAccess (Japan). Most of the vendors are ready and can demo their solutions: Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Nortel, Qualcomm, Lucent, Siemens, Huawei, ….Lucent has already grab two deals with eAccess and Cingular, while Nortel will install its solution in the isle of Man in the UK for MMO2.

Most of the actors forecast the market will take-off in 2006 when terminals will be ready.