Samsung Unveils Its First HSUPA Cell Phone

Samsung Electronics has unveiled its first cell phone to support faster upload speeds using HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) technololgy.

The SCH-M470 is a slider-type handset that can send data at up to 2M bps (bits per second) when on an HSUPA network.

Conventional WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) offers upload and download speeds of around 384k bps but cellular carriers are now deploying new technology to enable faster data transmission. The first enhancements to be added target the download rate, which is now 3.6M bps or 7.2M bps on some networks, using a technology called HSDPA, and now increasing the upload speed with HSUPA.

For consumers this adds up to less time spent waiting for pictures, video or music attachments on messages to be sent. As an example Samsung said using HSUPA means it takes just 30 seconds to send an average MP3 song file.

The Samsung phone also features WiFi, Bluetooth and a 2 megapixel camera. It is available in South Korea only and costs about 600,000 won (US$615).