Ericsson hits 168Mbps downlink and 24Mbps uplink over HSPA

Ericsson has announced that in a live demonstration staged for leading operator Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), Ericsson recorded three new HSPA world's first achievements in Stockholm, Sweden. The first demonstration showcased multi-carrier HSPA with 168Mbps on the downlink and 24Mbps on the uplink using a prototype consumer device and commercial network equipment. This is a world record for the highest HSPA speed achieved on commercial network equipment. This demonstration will also be shown by Ericsson during the GSMA Mobile World Congress later this month.

Dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps was also demonstrated for the first time ever, using commercial network products. By using two 5MHz carriers in the connection to the same consumer, peak speeds of 84Mbps are reached, doubling the maximum speed that is offered today by the fastest commercial HSPA networks.

The third world-first achievement was the demonstration of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps using end-to-end commercial products including a consumer device. With this new technology, it is possible to reach 42Mbps on a single WCDMA frequency carrier of 5MHz by using multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) technology. Compared with the currently-used dual-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps technology (that Ericsson, as the first vendor, already implemented at the end of 2009), operators can be much more efficient with their valuable radio spectrum.

The first commercial network implementations of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps and dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps can be expected during 2011, followed by higher HSPA speed implementations in later on.

The speeds referred to are peak network speeds. Actual customer speeds will be lower, and can vary owing to congestion, distance from the base station, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.