Hsdpa -- Engadget Mobile

Rogers' Rocket Hub disguises 3G data and voice as mild-mannered home modem

by Ross Miller posted Oct 3rd 2009 @ 7:10AM

Good news for Canadians who can't seem to get a decent internet plan for home. Rogers has unveiled a 3G station for residential use dubbed the Rocket Hub, and with it a number of jet propulsion-related puns that we'll be taking painstaking measures to avoid. It boasts 7.2Mbps HSPA, WiFi and ethernet out, and voice calls over UMTS. Makes sense since it's riding an Ericsson W3x core. Upfront cost of hardware hasn't been disclosed yet, but plans start at $35 Canadian. Launch date (okay, we couldn't resist) is sometime later this month.

Huawei set to launch 56Mbps HSPA+ service in 2010

by Donald Melanson posted Sep 21st 2009 @ 1:14PM

Remember last week? When 21Mbps HSPA+ was something to stand up and cheer about, and you were even happy to settle for HSPA 7.2 if you could? Well, it's time trade in those good feelings for some jealousy and bitterness once again, buckaroo, 'cause Hauwei has now announced that it's set to more than double HSPA+ speeds to a jaw-dropping 56Mbps. That impressive feat has reportedly already been demonstrated by the company in Beijing, and Huawei will apparently begin a full rollout sometime next year. What's more, Huawei says that its carrier partners will be able to upgrade to the increased bandwidth via a simple software upgrade, which should both lower the cost and speed up the rollout -- just not around here.

Nokia Mural doesn't play nice with 3G, yanked from AT&T shelves

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 15th 2009 @ 7:29AM

A North American Nokia with 3G that doesn't work on 3G, needs to be recalled and replaced... something about this story sounds familiar, doesn't it? Unlike the curious case of the 5800 XpressMusic, though, the Mural is a branded phone operated directly through AT&T -- so the fact that it was accidentally released without being able to connect to 3G is especially shady. It's a hardware problem which means a firmware update isn't going to magically make this particular quirk go away; replacement phones are expected next week, but if Mural owners prefer, they're welcome to come into an AT&T store and take a different device in its stead.

Vodafone kicks off 14.4Mbps HSDPA upgrade in UK

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 28th 2009 @ 11:35AM

HSPA+ is the ultimate in pre-LTE wireless standards -- but before Vodafone UK gets there, it wants to take plain ol' HSPA just as far as it'll go by pushing downlink speeds all the way to 14.4Mbps. Great Britain's largest operator has announced that it has already flipped the switch on 14.4 in parts of London, Birmingham, and Liverpool, with the remainder of Her Majesty's Royal Network being bumped "on an ongoing basis." This puts rivals Orange, O2, and 3 in a bit of a crunch since they're just now in the process of rolling out 7.2, but then again, putting equipment in customers' hands to take advantage of the higher speeds is really the biggest challenge; otherwise, it's little more than a chest-puffing competition for these guys. At any rate, it makes you wonder about AT&T's claims that 14.4Mbps HSDPA had technical issues, doesn't it?

GSMA backpedals, changes Telus' HSPA launch window to October

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 27th 2009 @ 5:22PM

We can imagine the phone call now:

"GSM Association, how can I help you?"
"Yo, this is Telus... where'd you hear September for our HSPA launch? What are you smoking?"
"But we..."
"Yeah, 'but you' nothing. October, broham... you heard it here first. Telus out." (click)

[Thanks, Alex]

GSMA spills beans on September launch for Telus' HSPA network

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 26th 2009 @ 8:01PM

There was really never any question that Telus' shiny new HSPA network was launching this fall, but the carrier's generally been tightlipped on specifics; fortunately, standards bodies and industry associations have a funny tendency to unintentionally help fill in some of those blanks, and this time around it's the GSM Association doing the honors. The GSMA is now reporting that HSPA (well, HSDPA, anyway) will be live next month, and customers apparently can expect to be treated to the opportunity to buy some world-class devices like the Hero and BL40 to celebrate the launch. It's hard to tell what Rogers is really thinking through the poker face -- but if you look closely, we think you can see a few beads of sweat forming.

[Via MobileSyrup and HowardForums]

Video: Toshiba TG01 gets UK launch, we handle it again

by Vladislav Savov posted Jul 10th 2009 @ 8:00AM

It may have already been teased, poked and prodded, but the TG01 from Toshiba still insisted on making a big splash on its arrival to the UK and we were only too happy to oblige and join in on its launch event in London. As you should know by now, this is Toshiba's most significant attempt to date at penetrating the consumer smartphone market, and it's coming equipped with a battering ram named Snapdragon. Keep reading for the juicy details on the UI, construction and general feel, as well as a neat stash of images and videos of the phone in action.

Continue reading Video: Toshiba TG01 gets UK launch, we handle it again

HTC Hero approved by Global Certification Forum, rocking GSM and HSPA

by Ross Miller posted Jun 21st 2009 @ 3:28PM

We're unfortunately light on details here, but The Unwired is reporting that HTC's Hero has been approved by the Global Certification Forum, listed here as "HERO100," with support for quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dualband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at 1800/2100 MHz. With the company's touted London event just around the corner -- this Wednesday, to be exact -- we wouldn't be surprised to see the phone and its oft-rumored "Rosie" Android UI take center stage, in possibly two variations. Other than frequency bands and the associative name, the GCF isn't giving us anything else to work with, so for now just sit back and hope this uncertainty is cleared up sooner rather than later.

Samsung B7610 Louvre rematerializes, spec'd and caught on camera

by Ross Miller posted Jun 12th 2009 @ 7:27PM

It's been some time since we've heard a word about Samsung's enigmatic QWERTY slider, the B7610 Louvre. Now it looks like we've got on our hands a new, decidedly more clear pic of the phone care of GPSAndCo, along with a list of technical details. According to the site, we're looking at a quad-band Windows Mobile 6.1 device (upgradable to 6.5) with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 3.5-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio, miniUSB, 1GB built-in memory, and a microSDHC slot. Still not official, but should this pan out, Orange and SFR business customers can look to it sometime in July with the price lining up somewhere between €250 and €500.

[Via WMPoweruser]

Palm Eos: super-thin, 3G, and headed to AT&T?

by Joshua Topolsky posted Apr 30th 2009 @ 12:52PM

Liked that blurry photo of a new Palm webOS phone we saw earlier? Well how about some specs, a name, and a better look at this thing? Enter the device above, apparently dubbed the Palm Eos (codenamed Castle... where have we seen that before?), which it seems will be the company's proper follow-up to the Centro -- a quadband GSM / HSDPA phone notably rocking the 850 / 1900 AT&T and Rogers-friendly frequencies. The phone will supposedly be an astounding 10.6mm thin, will measure just 55mm x 111mm (about 2.1 by 4.3-inches), weigh 100 grams, and will tout a 2.63-inch, 320 x 400 capacitive display. Of course, the info we've got right now can't be verified, and since there are a couple of minor question marks here (like barely rounded corners in the OS), you should take it all with a grain of salt... as usual. Needless to say, we're working on getting more details (and some confirmation), so stay tuned!

Update: Oh boy -- looks like we just got the full spec list. And yes, it's definitely coming to AT&T (if it's really coming).

4GB storage
Price: $349 (pre-rebate)
Camera: 2 megapixel fixed focus digital camera and flash / video capture
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 w/ A2DP and EDR, USB 2.0 via micro USB
Removable 1150 mAh battery (4 hours 3G talk time)
Messaging: SMS, MMS (picture and video only), integrated IM client
Contact sync with AT&T Address Book
MediaNet
Cellular Video
Email: POP3, IMAP4, and EAS support
A-GPS
Audio: WAV, MP3, AAC, AAC+ ringtones
Video Playback: MPEG4, H.264, H.263

LG's GD900 with (multi-touch?) transparent keypad gets S-Class UI

by Thomas Ricker posted Mar 30th 2009 @ 4:15AM

The recent glut of telephony news can mean only one thing: CTIA Wireless 2009 is getting ready to kick off in Vegas baby, Las Vegas. In the runup we have LG upping the hype on its 13.4mm-thick GD900 handset first outed in Barcelona at February's MWC show. This time, however, the 7.2Mbps HSDPA slider with world's first transparent glass (not plastic as originally assumed) keypad will be functional, running LG's new S-Class UI on the 3-inch display. We know that the GD900 features vibrational haptic feedback and that the transparent keypad seems to double as a touch-sensitive mouse pad (like that on your laptop) when surfing the internet or navigating the UI -- it also seems to support gestures like writing "M" to launch MP3 music player and multi-touch such as pinch to zoom on photographs. The GD900 will launch in Europe and Asia sometime in May. No US release announced so we'll have to make the most of our time with it this week in order to clear up all the mysteries presented by the Korean press release. One more pic showing an apparent finger-swipe rotating the UI after the break.

[Via Akihabara News and Engadget Korea]

Continue reading LG's GD900 with (multi-touch?) transparent keypad gets S-Class UI

T-Mobile says it'll cover 200M pops in 3G by end of year

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 17th 2009 @ 7:40AM

Shoehorned in with its Samsung Memoir announcement today, T-Mobile has announced that it plans on covering 200 million Americans with its AWS 3G network by the end of 2009. That's up from "more than 100 million people" at the end of 2008, so even if you consider "more than 100 million" to be as high as 150 million, that's still a nice boost in HSPA coverage year over year. And considering that we're expecting a barrage of new G series (or at least one or two of 'em) to launch on T-Mob in '09, we'll take just as much 3G as we can get.

Orange becoming first in Europe with LG's G910 Watch Phone

by Darren Murph posted Feb 16th 2009 @ 1:06PM

We knew production was destined to start in 2009, and lo and behold, Orange has committed to selling the thing. You heard right -- sometime "later this year," LG's G910 Watch Phone will be available across the operator's European footprint, though there's nary a mention of pricing. For those who've forgotten, this timepiece will support Bluetooth headset pairing, 3G HSDPA, video calling, multimedia playback and touch input, and it'll also make you the coolest cat in the office. And that's a Billy Mays guarantee.

Nokia's 5630 XpressMusic is 12-mm slim, HSUPA fast, and S60 powerful

by Thomas Ricker posted Feb 10th 2009 @ 4:27AM

Like Symbian candybars? Then try this surprising little number, the 5630 XpressMusic. Nokia's 5800-sib is an N-Gage ready, 12-mm slimster with a 4GB microSD card dropped in the box along side a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack to rock whatever buds, plugs, or cans you have an itch for. It's also packing a 3.2 megapixel, "4x zoom" camera with dual-LED flash and HSDPA/HSUPA data to move your pics and videos up to your favorite photo sharing site on a rocket. Dedicated audio keys and Nokia's "say and play" feature makes the 5630 a media all-rounder. Expected in Q2 for around €200 pre-tax, pre-subsidy.

AT&T revs up with 7.2Mbps HSPA tests in Chicago

by Sean Cooper posted Dec 18th 2008 @ 5:44PM

While we're still all dreaming of the joy that will be LTE, the Long Term part of Long Term Evolution is still weighing pretty heavily on us. AT&T's Mark Siegel went on record saying that AT&T is currently testing -- unlike Rogers completed rollout in Canada -- some 7.2 Mbps speeds in Chicago that may eventually speed up to 14.4 Mbps. Sadly, there's no mention if this is a closed-door affair, or if anybody in Chicagoland can get in on the fun, so do us a favor and holler if you're suddenly getting blazingly fast speeds where they were previously lacking. Here's hoping for a 7.2 rollout nationwide on the soonish side, huh AT&T?