Ericsson readies demo of 84Mbit/s HSPA

Ericsson has announced that it will give the world's first demonstration of 84Mbit/s High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona later this month.

The Swedish telecoms giant said that the rapid growth of data traffic across mobile networks driven by the use of smartphones, laptops and other devices means that wireless access to data services and the internet is now vital.

Marie Westrin, head of radio development at Ericsson, explained that the new technology had been designed with this in mind.

"Our driving force is to fulfil consumers' needs for social networking, online gaming and videoconferencing, just to mention a few services, on the move," she said.

Ericsson has a track record of using Mobile World Congress to demonstrate upcoming technologies. The company showcased the world's first 42Mbit/s HSPA at last year's event, and the technology is now commercially available and being rolled-out by operators across the globe.

Denmark and four cities in Sweden will be the first to have access to the 84Mbit/s HSPA technology when operator 3 Scandinavia begins a rollout in the first quarter of 2010. Commercial deployments are scheduled for the first half of 2011.

Ericsson pointed out that the speeds are peak network downlink speeds and that actual download speeds could vary due to congestion, distance from the base station, local conditions, and other contributing factors.