South Korea pushes mobile speeds

In Seoul a technology with the formidable name of High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is behind this boost to wireless speeds. It piggybacks on the 3G cellular networks, but HDSPA has been especially tweaked to give speeds which are about three to four times faster than regular 3G. The BBC reports.

"In South Korea it is in much wider use than most other places, and consequently it is one of the first places in the world where people are actually beginning to use it

Some of the mobile features made available at high speed:

-- You can take your pick from 10-megapixel camera phones, to bespoke phones with elementary mixing for budding teenage DJs.

-- 8GB hard drive music phones can store 2000 tracks.

-- A virtual pooch responds according to affection you bestow, and if you happen across a similar phone owner you can cross-breed a puppy and then give it up for adoption to another user.

-- Handsets with built-in motion sensors, so you can play games, make music or enhance the core functions of the phone - like speed dialling by waving your arms in the air.

-- Outshining all of those have got to be phones with great hi-res screens, where you can watch several dozen channels of TV content in amazingly decent quality.

Even Faster

Koreans are already thinking about 4G networks which will deliver blisteringly fast speeds.

In a recent display of mobile muscle, a few Samsung execs were given a taste of things to come - a 100 megabit stream of data whilst moving at 60 kph.

That is enough for video on demand, a live broadcast, and web surfing simultaneously".

emily | 1:44 PM | DMB |
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