Cingular showing off 3.6Mbps HSDPA

Jan 05 2006 - 03:00 PM ET | 3G, CES, Cingular, Data

CES 2006 - Cingular has successfuly completed the first HSDPA data call, right here at CES. Last night at a media event there was a laptop computer equipped with a 3.6Mbps HSDPA PC card and it was attaining around 2Mbps during normal use. This is significantly faster than EV-DO and could be a major boost for Cingular. The demo MobileTracker saw was a movie trailer on Apple's QuickTime site and they were downloading faster than real time.

While HSDPA is currently being rolled out, the current set of cards and phones are not for the newer 3.6Mbps HSDPA. The network will support it though, so it should just be a matter of updating your hardware to get the speed boost.

Most major markets should have HSDPA coverage by the end of the year.