Telstra hoses down 21 Mbps claims

The telco made the announcement yesterday as it claimed to have successfully completed connectivity testing between network infrastructure equipment and mobile device technology for its planned network upgrade to Enhanced HSPA (eHSPA).

eHSPA, also known as HSPA Evolution or HSPA+, is designed to enhance the mobile broadband user experience and enable a wide range of services, according to Mike Wright, executive director of Telstra Wireless.

The interoperability test was performed on a wireless infrastructure network solution from Ericsson using Qualcomm's MDM8200 product, said to be the industry's first chipset solution to support eHSPA devices.

Telstra claimed that ‘Australians using the Telstra network will be the first in the world to experience peak downlink speeds of 21Mbps by the end of the year’.

However, it admitted that admitting customers would experience far less due to ‘congestion, distance from the cell, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors’.

Overall download speed improvements are still expected from the upgrade.

"In addition to higher peak rates, people will enjoy shorter response times and a better overall experience when using their mobile devices on the eHSPA network," said Alex Katouzian, vice president of product management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.