Vodafone (VOD), the world’s largest revenue-generating wireless carrier, has reportedly launched the most advanced wireless high-speed Internet service in Greece based on the new HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access) mobile broadband technology.
The newly launched service which is also one of the first of its kind in Europe, will offer theoretical peak download speed of 21.6 megabit per second (Mbps), a significant improvement from the present download speeds of 14.4 Mbps offered by Vodafone in Greece.
The company will initially offer this advancement in the selected areas of Athens and extend the service in other areas in due course. The company recently completed commercial rollout of HSPA+ based mobile broadband service in Portugal as the first operator in that country to offer maximum download speed of 21.6 Mbps.
HSPA+, also called HSPA Evolution, represents a major advancement in 3G-based wireless broadband technologies, aimed at improving customer experience by significantly boosting network speed. Vodafone is currently leading the way in developing services based on this technology. The company is aggressively upgrading its existing 3G network to HSPA+ in order to offer more efficient data transport management with a potential for boosting download speed to 42 Mbps.
Vodafone continues to leapfrog its two major rivals Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) T-Mobile and Telefonica’s (TEF) O2 in the European mobile broadband market in terms of technology advancements. The company is the first and only operator in Europe to offer theoretical peak download speeds of 14.4 Mbps and 21.6 Mbps which are compared to the average top speed of 7.2 Mbps currently offered by both T-Mobile and O2.
Ongoing efforts to upgrade the existing network infrastructure should result in higher average revenue per user (ARPU), higher minute usage and improved operating margins through greater network efficiency. Given this prospect, we maintain our Buy recommendation for Vodafone.
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