Opera has claimed that its browser for the iPhone runs six times faster than the handset’s native Safari browser over 3G.

The company has been demonstrating Opera Mini on a developer iPhone at the Mobile World Congress. As Apple does not currently accept rival browsers onto the platform, Opera has not yet submitted theirs to the App Store – but it does intend to do so at some point, founder Jon von Tetzchner told ZDNet UK during a demonstration.

“It will be submitted, but we haven’t decided when,” he said on Tuesday. “We want to tune the product a little bit more. We wouldn’t be making it if it wasn’t our intention to submit it.”

Von Tetzchner said Opera Mini runs six times faster than Safari on the iPhone when using 3G networks, and runs at least as many times faster over GPRS. “Opera Mini would give Apple’s iPhone users a much better browsing experience, especially in slower networks,” he said.

Source: ZDNet

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