Today, three important steps were taken in the evolution of HSPA. A representative from leading operator SingTel was in attendance when Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) recorded three new HSPA world-first achievements in Stockholm, Sweden.

The first demonstration showcased multi-carrier HSPA with 168Mbps on the downlink and 24Mbps on the uplink using a prototype consumer device and commercial network equipment. This is a world record for the highest HSPA speed achieved on commercial network equipment. This demonstration will also be shown by Ericsson during the GSMA Mobile World Congress later this month.

Tay Soo Meng, Executive Vice President of SingTel Networks says: ” SingTel has been driving the growth of mobile data services with the introduction of new smartphones, tablet devices and rich multimedia applications. We expect to see greater demand for higher speeds and bandwidth in the near future. We have been in continuous collaborations with Ericsson on opportunities in the HSPA evolution and its relevance and timing for implementation in our networks. In 2010, we were one of the first in the world to demonstrate 42Mbps “live” on our networks, and it is a natural progression to continue improvements in HSPA with 84Mbps and beyond.”

Dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps was also demonstrated for the first time ever, using commercial network products. By using two 5MHz carriers in the connection to the same consumer, peak speeds of 84Mbps are reached, doubling the maximum speed that is offered today by the fastest commercial HSPA networks.

The third world-first achievement was the demonstration of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps using end-to-end commercial products including a consumer device. With this new technology, it is possible to reach 42Mbps on a single WCDMA frequency carrier of 5MHz by using multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) technology. Compared with the currently-used dual-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps technology (that Ericsson, as the first vendor, already implemented at the end of 2009), operators can be much more efficient with their valuable radio spectrum.

Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: “These three achievements are the latest additions to our long list of world firsts in HSPA, demonstrating our technology leadership. Operators like Singtel, want to offer their customers the highest HSPA speeds and network capacity needed to fulfill the ever-increasing demand for mobile broadband services on any device. For many years we have focused on the evolution of HSPA and it is rewarding to see that the industry-wide support for HSPA Evolution is now stronger than ever Ericsson’s Evo RAN brings EDGE, HSPA and LTE together into one strong, industry-leading offering. The potential for HSPA is even larger and 3GPP is already looking at even higher HSPA speeds.”

The first commercial network implementations of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps and dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps can be expected during 2011, followed by higher HSPA speed implementations in later on.

The speeds referred to are peak network speeds. Actual customer speeds will be lower, and can vary owing to congestion, distance from the base station, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.