QUALCOMM tests 20 Mb/s speed using HSPA+

As per telecomweb news Qualcomm has completed what is characterized as the "world's first data call" using High-Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+) network technology, achieving a data transfer rate of more than 20 Mb/s in a 5 MHz channel.

The Qualcomm results were nearly twice as fast as the highest previously-reported HSPA+ results, in which Nokia-Siemens Networks demonstrated 10.1 Mb/s downlink performance. Both tests are highly significant in the positioning of HSPA+ as the interim generation between the current HSPA wireless broadband, typically delivering between 1 Mb/s and 2 Mb/s, and the eventual adoption of the much faster Long Term Evolution (LTE), with a theoretical 173 Mb/s bandwidth.

HSPA+, seen by many analysts as the technology which will destroy the market chances of IEEE 802.16e-2005 (which is being called by Intel and its camp followers mobile WiMAX), has a theoretical limit of 42 Mb/s in its current version, although most observers think it will top out at around 28.8 Mb/s. An advanced version that may double those specs is in the works. That, many feel, will be more than enough for HSPA/HSPA+ to be the dominant wireless broadband technology for the cellular industry until at least 2015

HSPA+, by the way, is also known s Evolved HSPA, HSPA Evolution, and I-HSPA or Internet HSPA. wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7.HSPA+, or whatever one calls it, is 3rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) Release 7. HSPA was Release 6, and LTE is Release 8.