Samsung will develop phones for HSDPA Vodafone

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world's third-largest maker of handsets, will supply Vodafone Group Plc with new mobile phones that use Qualcomm Inc.'s modem chips, Samsung said Wednesday.

The new phones will use high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology that allows subscribers to use multimedia services such as Internet access and video sharing at higher speed and lower costs, Samsung said in a statement.

"Samsung is currently developing the first commercially available HSDPA phone to be launched exclusively for Vodafone," the South Korean firm said.

Samsung P400
Samsung P400

To manufacture the phones, Samsung will buy Mobile Station Modem from U.S. wireless technology company Qualcomm (Research). Samsung did not provide financial details of the deal.

HSDPA is a next-step technology developed for use over networks based on WCDMA, the world's most popular third-generation (3G) mobile standard. It effectively turbocharges WCDMA networks, transferring data several times faster than existing capabilities, providing a critical boost for lucrative but data-intensive services such as music downloads and video streaming.

Samsung is a major mobile phone provider for U.K.-based Vodafone. Samsung is currently discussing selling mobile phones to Vodafone K.K., the Japanese unit of Vodafone Group. Shares in Samsung ended 0.15 percent lower at 661,000 won on Wednesday, compared with the wider market's 0.39 percent fall.

High-Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA is a mobile telephony protocol. Also called 3.5G (or "Three and a half G"). High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a packet-based data service in W-CDMA downlink with data transmission up to 8-10 Mbit/s (and 20 Mbit/s for MIMO systems) over a 5 MHz bandwidth in WCDMA downlink.