It’s been a year since I was last in what I would call a ‘deep rural’ spot in Austria in a little town in the region of Oberösterreich with around 2500 people living there and nothing but countryside and cows around. In the past months there have been press reports by a number of Austrian UMTS operators that they will now also start covering the Austrian countryside with UMTS. I didn’t give it much thought at the time as words in press statements usually have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Looks like, however, words have been followed by action. This time I was surprised when I saw UMTS networks of A1 and ‘3’ on my network selection dialog. Most excellent since A1/Mobilkom is the roaming partner of Vodafone Germany so I can use their Websessions here! A quick test revealed data rates of 1.2 MBit/s in downlink. Far below the capabilities of HSDPA but likely due to a limited backhaul. Never mind, it will do nicely.