Mobile operator, Vodafone Portugal, has revealed that it has made its first data call on 3.5G, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA).

The call was made as part of Vodafone's programme to test the HSDPA technology, which enables faster transmission speeds. Vodafone is expected to introduce HSDPA to a number of users from the beginning of 2006, to include some of its partners, employees and customers, with plans to fully launch HSDPA in the second half of the year.

During the test phase, Vodafone said higher transmission speeds of up to 1.5Mb/s had been achieved - this is around four times the 384kb/s speed available on 3G at present.

Here is a good piece of explaination on HSPDA

HSDPA's incremental UMTS network upgrade aims to increase user peak data rates and quality-of-service and improve spectral efficiency - much like EDGE and 1XRTT have done for 2G. Although UMTS enables streaming video, broadband Internet access and video conferencing, HSDPA offers peak downlink data rates of up to 14 Mbps - dramatically more than the 384 kbps that is typical of today's UMTS and the highest data rate of any available mobile WAN technology.

http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/dec_04/news_5314.shtml