Following a “technical validation” trial today, the carrier promises its network upgrade, which will offer DSL-like data speeds on a mobile, will be in Auckland trial customers’ hands by October, with widespread commercial deployment during 2010.

In a demonstration at Vodafone’s Auckland headquarters this afternoon, a Nokia Siemens cell site streamed data at up to 19.2Mbit/s, and uploaded at up to 4Mbit/s.

Vodafone GM of Networks Mike Davies was reluctant to say what real-world speeds customer could expect in October or beyond, but did acknowledge that those proffered by Telstra in Australia (which has already upgraded to 21Mbit/s in places) were realistic. Telstra tells customers to expect speeds of 7Mbit/s

Currently, Telecom, Vodafone and (from next week) 2degrees all have W-CDMA 3G networks using HSPA technology that max out at 7.2Mbit/s.

Telecom had already promised a HSPA+ upgrade, allowing for a theoretical 21Mbit/s peak download speed by Christmas, but has yet to comment on how broad its roll-out will be.

None of the assembled Vodafone or Nokia Siemens staff at the Auckland demo today were aware of any cellphone that supports 21Mbit/s downloads. However, there is already a broad selection of data cards and data sticks that too.

Price shock?
Latency (lag) was an impressive 38 to 42ms - far lower than usual for a wireless connection, if still about twice that of a DSL connection. Lower latency will help with interactive appliations, and a 3G connection's potential to replace a landline.

But all this speed and pep comes with a downside.

During the first few minutes of demo, 2.4GB of data was downloaded - close to the maximum under Vodafone’s most generous monthly deal (its 3GB free for iPhone owners).

Technical hurdles have been jumped, but commercial and customer pricing issues remain.

Skip a step
Where next? Mr Davies says Vodafone has to decide whether to move up yet another gear to 43Mbit/s (as Telstra has done in Australia in limited locations) or jump straight to LTE or so-called 4G, with its theoretical maximum speed of 160Mbit/s.