Vodafone's 14.4Mbps HSDPA USB Stick (USA's So Far Behind)

It didn't take long for HK-based Smartone-Vodafone to max out the current HSDPA's top speed. There's an ads on a local newspaper promoting the carrier's latest deployment upgrade to 14.4Mbit/s, which in other words, is HSDPA's theoretical maximum throughput. HSUPA - the up-link - remains the same at 2Mbps.

The device that can achieve this top speed is Vodafone's USB Stick, which is an upgrade to the pebble-like USB Modem in both performance and form factor. In addition to the new 14.4Mbps mode, the thumbdrive-sized WAN modem can fall back to 7.2Mbps, 3.6Mbps and even 1.8Mbps, whose services were introduced during 2007 and 2008. The stick alone in HKD costs $1888 if opt for the Flexi plan. You get $200 discount if you feel like signing a $488 plan on a 18-month contract. The modem can even be yours for free if you tie yourself to a 30-month contract.