Ericsson plans to demonstrate an HSPA+ network with a peak theoretical download rate of 84Mbps at next week’s Mobile World Congress, aiming for the fastest peak rate yet for an HSPA+ network.

The demonstration in Barcelona will be the first public showing of an 84Mbps HSPA+ network, Ericsson said in its announcement last Friday. The company demonstrated the first 56Mbps HSPA technology at 2009’s CTIA conference in Las Vegas.

HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access, is an advanced version of HSPA, which improves the performance of existing 3G WCDMA protocols. The downlink protocol for HSPA is called high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), while the upload protocol is known as high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA).

Ericsson said this technology is aimed at allowing users to access applications such as social networking, online gaming and video conferencing on the move.

Source: ZDNet