Evolved HSPA / HSPA+

 HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7.

HSPA+ provides HSPA data rates up to 56 Mbit/s on the downlink and 22 Mbit/s on the uplink through the use of a multiple-antenna technique known as MIMO (for “multiple-input and multiple-output”) and higher order modulation (64QAM). MIMO on CDMA based systems acts like virtual sectors to give extra capacity closer to the mast. The 56 Mbit/s and 22 Mbit/s represent theoretical peak sector speeds. The actual speed for a user will be lower. At cell edge and even at half the distance to the cell edge there may only be slight increase compared with 14.4 Mbit/s HSDPA unless a wider channel than 5 MHz is used. Future revisions of HSPA+ support up to 168 Mbit/s using multiple carriers.
HSPA+ also introduces an optional all-IP architecture for the network where base stations are directly connected to IP based backhaul and then to the ISP's edge routers. The technology also delivers significant battery life improvements and dramatically quicker wake-from-idle time - delivering a true always-on connection. HSPA+ should not be confused with LTE, which uses a new air interface.
As of November 2009, there are 20 HSPA+ networks running in the world at 21 Mbit/s and two are running at 28 Mbit/s^. The first to launch was Telstra in Australia in late 2008, with access in February 2009 to speeds up to 21 Mbit/s.