Presumably, the article meant to say '3G base stations'. 2G ones certainly won't cut it, and HSDPA is the domain of UTRAN (3G) and not GSM (2G) or GPRS (2.5G)...
I could go further and state that the article should have stated "3G NodeBs and a handful more RNCs", but I would never be so pedantic...
Sorry, I'll go back to my quiet little corner now...
A.