HSPA stands for High Speed Packet Access and is the generic term for HSDPA and HSUPA. It is a data transmission standard and an extension of the UMTS mobile communications standard.
HSDPA stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access and refers to the download speed. It is part of the third generation Internet standard, also known as 3G+, 3.5G or UMTS broadband. With HSDPA, a download speed of 14.4 Mbit/s can be achieved. Due to shorter download times and faster page loading, mobile surfing has become much more convenient for users with the introduction of HSDPA.
HSUPA is the abbreviation for High-Speed Uplink Packet Access and is the data transfer speed for uploads. It offers a speed of up to 5.8 Mbit/s. While the faster download of data made a real difference in mobile surfing, the faster upload of data was not quite as important for end users. Only when it came to sending larger amounts of data, such as photos, did the increased data rates become noticeable.
The HSDPA and HSUPA extensions, among other things, made data rates similar to DSL possible for mobile surfing for the first time.
HSPA+ is a further development of HSPA. It provides higher bandwidths than its predecessor. Download speeds of up to 28 Mbit/s are possible here. HSPA+ itself is technically considered the predecessor of LTE.
