Hutchinson 3 flicks the switch to 3.6Mbps HSDPA

Hutchison's 3 is set to join the HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) 3G club, but will leapfrog its competitors by going straight to the turbo-charged HSDPA 3.6Mbps across its entire network.

This doubles the potential throughput of the more common HSDPA 1.8Mbps protocol, which provides the backbone of Vodafone's "business class" 3G broadband service launched last month.

James Toepfer, Business Solutions Specialist with 3 Mobile, told ZDNet Australia that the high-speed service would span "the entire footprint of 3's broadband zone by the end of March 2007".

This would bring most of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra under its wireless wing.L33tdawg: ... and here in Malaysia they're struggling to roll out 1.8Mbps HSDPA with only Celcom going the distance and aggressively rolling out its service. Even Maxis, the so-called 'most admired company in Malaysia' is limiting its data download speeds to 768Kbps -- and they dare to call this 'broadband'. W T F.