The RazorKnow Organisation

As Italy gears up for the launch of a mega fast mobile broadband service, it is the latest country to have left UK behind in the race.

Just recently, the Australian telecom firm Telstra announced that it would launch its 21MB mobile broadband service, which would first be available to the company’s business customers, and then to the general public in April. Not to be left behind, Telecom Italia has been working in collaboration with the Swedish company Ericsson, and it plans to launch its 28MB service this year. Milan would be the first city to have access to this service in June, which will be followed by a nation-wide roll out later in the year.

Ericsson, the telecom technology provider is leading the HSPA development, and is putting in a lot of effort for the growth of network technology. The collaboration with Telecom Italia will make use of the MIMO (Multiple Input and Multiple Output) technology, which allows transmission of data through two or more antenna branches, and enables much faster download speeds. The expected speed of the new service in Italy is likely to be up to four times that of the 3g broadband availability in UK. Although, the usual mobile broadband problems like long distance from the base station, cold weather, local conditions, network traffic etc. are expected to lower the connection speed available to the consumer.

The pricing is yet to be finalized, but if the high prices being charged in Australia can be seen as a hint, users may have to pay some premium to avail these fast broadband services.