Nokia Open Studio Fall 2006

Sam K said:
The article states that the N75 supports WCDMA but "lacks HSDPA". I thought they were the same but after looking at the PhoneScoop glossary, it appears that HSDPA is an upgraded version WCDMA. I thought that Cingular only supports HSDPA. Does that mean that they also support WCDMA kind of like how EDGE phones also support GPRS?

Yes. HSDPA is simply a speed enhancement to WCDMA.

In the same way, EDGE is simply a faster mode of GPRS.

Can a WCDMA capable phone like the N75 take advantage of the HSDPA capabilities on the Cingular network but just at a slower speed?

It's not accurate to say that it would "take advantage of the HSDPA capabilities". HSDPA is simply a faster mode of WCDMA. Therefore it's really only accurate to put it the other way around: an HSDPA phone can "take advantage of the WCDMA capabilities on the Cingular network but just at a faster speed".

The N75 is not the first WCDMA phone for Cingular without HSDPA. There was also the Samsung ZX-10 and LG CU320. They work fine on Cingular's 3G WCDMA network, but simply can't take advantage of the faster HSDPA data mode.

Cingular's 3G network is 100% WCDMA, but because they built it so much later than the European carriers, they simply used the newest WCDMA network equipment available, which supports the faster HSDPA data modes.