Home opinion-and-analysis Cornered! Optus & Motorola hint at first HSPA+ 42Mbps smartphone

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A forthcoming announcement by Optus and Motorola of a new smartphone hints at some intriguing possibilities.

42 as every Douglas Adams fan knows is the answer to ultimate question. Its also the name for Telstra's HSPA+ dongle that is capable of delivering data at a theoretical maximum speed of 42Mbps using 21Mbps HSPA+ and dual carriers.

So when this number appears fleetingly in a YouTube teaser video for a new Motorola smartphone that promises to be "Faster. Thinner. Smarter. Stronger," you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that what we are talking about here is, probably, the first smartphone that will support HSPA+ at 42Mbps (theoretical).

And in contrast to recent Motorola phones (the Defy and the Atrix) This one is being launched with Optus, not Telstra. iTWire has received an invitation for 27 October to the launch of "the latest Motorola smartphone" and the invite carried the Motorola and Optus logos.

Optus announced on 15 September that it was: "rolling out HSPA+ technology to increase potential data speeds on its mobile network. It said it had "already upgraded more than 700 mobile sites across the country to HSPA+ and [planned] to continue to extend its HSPA+ footprint."

What Optus did not say was when HSPA+ services would be offered; or whether these would be single carrier 21Mbps, or dual carrier 42Mbps.

As for the video. Check it out for yourself. But don't blink or you'll miss the 42.

And the video suggests we won't have to wait until the 27th to find the answer to the ultimate question; it shows a date of 18 October.

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Stuart Corner

 

Tracking the telecoms industry since 1989, Stuart has been awarded Journalist Of The Year by the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (twice) and by the Service Providers Action Network. In 2010 he received the 'Kester' lifetime achievement award in the Consensus IT Writers Awards and was made a Lifetime Member of the Telecommunications Society of Australia. He was born in the UK, came to Australia in 1980 and has been here ever since.

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