Qualcomm chipset bring HSUPA one step nearer

Stuart Corner
Monday, 08 May 2006 18:46

Business IT - Technology

Qualcomm claims to have the first cellphone chipset supporting HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), the 3G specification that will support a wider-range of uplink-intensive wireless services requiring low network latency such as VoIP, push to multimedia for instant sharing of high-quality video and digital images, and richly rendered 3D gaming with multiple players.
The chipset, the MSM7200 also supports multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) for broadcasting of multimedia content over existing UMTS networks.

Alex Katouzian, senior director of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said the company was looking forward to "imminent commercialisation" of the new chipset.

The MSM7200 chipset for HSUPA/HSDPA/WCDMA and EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks supports data rates of up to 7.2 Mbps on the downlink and up to 5.76 Mbps on the uplink. Qualcomm claims that mobile users will benefit from a new seamless quality for 3D games, video files and web browsing with quicker downloading and uploading of email messages with large file attachments.

It suggests that network operators will also be able to cost-effectively offer their subscribers the ability to receive compelling content such as news programs, traffic reports, television shows and movies on mobile handsets.

In February Nortel claimed to have successfully achieved the first simultaneous uplink and downlink high-speed wireless calls between two mobile devices at uplink speeds four times faster than current UMTS services.

Nortel's demonstration used its commercial UMTS base station and Aeroflex's TM500 handset simulator to exchange VoIP, videos and files at uplink speeds of 1.4Mbps. Nortel said it expected HSUPA to be available from the beginning of 2007 and to deliver higher uplink throughput, reduced latency, and higher capacity through a software upgrade of commercial networks.