First Nokia 4G Phone Soon
According to production schedules released by the technology department of Nokia the mobile phone company will release its first 4G phone later this year, making Nokia one of the first phone companies to produce a 4G phone.
A number of 4G networks are already operating or are just around the corner. Verizon 4G is due to launch soon, while AT&T 4G should be online in 2011.
In Canada, both Bell and Telus have announced new 4G networks in the pipeline.
Nokia Helps Austria Go 4G
Nokia Siemens has won a contract to upgrade Austria’s Hutchinson mobile network from 3G to 4G. The upgrade is expected to begin later this year and will initially be made to HSPA+ speed.
A full upgrade to a 4G / LTE mobile network is expected to happen in 2011.
Nokia’s 4G Modem
Nokia has launched its first ever 4G / LTE modem. The Nokia Internet Modem RD-3 can support 4G data calls as well as the current 3G / HSPA and 2G / EDGE mobile internet connections.
Sounds like a beautiful piece of mobile internet kit. Just one problem – you can’t buy this Nokia 4G modem.
For now at least, the RD-3 is only available to mobile phone carriers and network suppliers to test LTE services before public launches. Nokia have yet to say whether the modem will be made available to the phone buying public later.
Nokia 4G Phones – 50% longer battery life?
Nokia-Siemens have released details of a new technology that improves cell phone battery life and significantly boosts network capacity.
Called Circuit Switched over HSPA (CSoHSPA), it moves voice from the normal circuit switched voice channel on legacy GSM networks to packet data. Because this needs much less cellphone battery power, phone talk time is massively increased – potentially up to 50% more. The technique also gives networks more capacity.
Nokia says call quality is the same as normal and that CSoHSPA can be put in place with a simple software upgrade.
CSoHSPA could well help phone carriers squeeze more juice out of the 3G phone networks they so heavily invested in until 4G technologies like WiMAX and LTE become more widespread.
