4 million HSPA converts a month

HSPA is taking over the world. According to the GSM Association, there are now 50 million users on HSPA networks around the globe – a massive leap from last’s year’s figure of 11 million connections. The association reckons that new users will be joining HSPA networks at the rate of around 4 million a month by the end of this year.

Apparently, there are now 191 operators with commercial HSPA networks and 740 devices you could connect up to them, should you want to.

If you’re up for more of these stats, the average peak speed is between 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps, which the association says means an average end user speed of over 1Mbps. Operators usually say that the real end user speed for a connection is one third of the peak. It would be interesting to get a more real world perspective on the GSMA’s numbers: what’s the average speed you’ve experienced using your HSPA connection? And is it better than your home broadband?