Ericsson To Demonstrate the New HSPA Multi-Carrier Technology at Mobile World Congress

Ericsson will demonstrate the new HSPA multi-carrier technology for peak downlink data rates of 42Mbps at the Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Multi-carrier technology is the next step in the evolution of HSPA and enables consumers to receive data simultaneously on two frequency channels, making the user data rate double in the coverage area of an HSPA network and on the cell edge, where consumers normally experience lower data rates.

 

The new HSPA multi-carrier technology uses the design concept of an Ericsson (News - Alert) Mobile Broadband Router, which enables easy-to-use fixed wireless access as an alternative for fixed-line services by utilizing an HSPA network. The high data rates of up to 42Mbps can be shared between multiple consumers, providing efficient use of the high-speed broadband connection.

 

Mike Wright, executive director of Telstra (News - Alert) Wireless, said, "This exciting concept demonstration shows the strength of the HSPA technology on which we have based our Next G(TM) network. The Telstra and Ericsson partnership has grown through the various releases of HSPA and has delivered tremendously successful high speed broadband services to millions of Australians. It is impressive to see the next evolution in action today as an indication of what carriers will be able to experience by the end of the year."

 

"With this demonstration, Ericsson shows its continued technology leadership. High peak data rates, increased capacity and low network costs are important ingredients for successful mobile broadband services. With the early introduction of 64QAM, MIMO and multi-carrier technologies, Ericsson enables operators all over the world to be leaders in their broadband markets," added Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio, Ericsson.

 

Base stations with two or more frequency channels are used in WCDMA/HSPA networks. The commercial HSPA devices can only make use of one 5MHz channel at a time. With multi-carrier consumer devices, data from two or more 5MHz channels can be received simultaneously by one consumer.

 

The data stream is split over the channels used in the radio base station. The first step is to use the multi-carrier concept on two frequency channels on the downlink, which doubles peak downlink speeds in the whole coverage area, also on the cell edge.

 

Multi-carrier technology can be introduced with a software-only upgrade in all Ericsson WCDMA/HSPA base stations with two or more channels, currently in the field. Single-carrier, multi-carrier and Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) users can use the same frequency channels simultaneously.