Digital World Tokyo | Japanese Super 3G to hit 300Mbps ahead of 4G switchover

Japanese Super 3G to hit 300Mbps ahead of 4G switchover

July 13th, 2007

As if the mobile phones with 3.6Mbps internet connections that are relatively common in Japan weren’t enough, NTT DoCoMo has announced that it is working on technology to up that almost tenfold by 2009.

The giant telco’s ‘Super 3G’ trial that is about to run in Japan for a month will see downloads to phones at 300Mbps using a combination of existing technologies.

Advanced versions of HSDPA and High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) will combine with up to four MIMO antennas in the trial to facilitate the blazing speeds.

While so much of the mobile business in Japan is about keeping up (well, ahead of) the Joneses, Super 3G is at least in part about making the most efficient use possible of the 3G spectrum while meeting current and future customer needs. Quite what we’re supposed to do with that kind of speed on a phone is a mystery right now, but they’ll think of something for sure.

After that, DoCoMo expects to make the transition to 4G technology four to five years from now. Considering that the company has already successfully hit 5Gbit/s on an experimental 4G setup, we’re inclined to believe the prediction.

(Crossposted to Tech.co.uk)