Quite a surprise today in Rome when my data card suddenly showed HSDPA instead of 3G when I logged on to the Internet with a SIM card from WIND. I haven’t seen an announcement on their web page yet nor anywhere in the streets. So I checked Google news, but came up empty handed as well. Did anyone besides me notice as well?
The transmission speed, however, was far from what it could be (like for example in the TIM network, for measurement details see here) due to constant TCP retries which I’ve also experienced in 3G mode in the past. It doesn’t have a lot of impact on web browsing and Skype but downloads of larger files take 2-3 times longer than over a good connection. I tried with a second HSDPA terminal of a different manufacturer and got the same results. Let’s hope Wind fixes this issue before the official launch.