Option today announced that they have successfully completed the industry's first demonstration of live HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) data card calls reaching a wireless uplink transmission rate of 1.3 Mbps and a wireless downlink of 2.7 Mbps at application level. Commercial availability of "HSUPA-Ready" and full HSUPA products from Option are planned for the first half of 2007.

HSUPA, the next step after HSDPA, enhances the data speed in the uplink up to a theoretical maximum of 5.7 Mbps, from the 384 kbps currently available with HSDPA. Higher performance is achieved through more efficient uplink scheduling in the base station and faster retransmission control. Whereas HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) enables users to receive large data files across the “downlink”, HSUPA increases the speed at which users can send large data files across the “uplink”. Traditional business applications along with many consumer applications will greatly benefit from these enhanced uplink speeds.

The companies completed an initial series of tests showcasing the HSUPA advantages for a large number of applications such as: uploading a 15 MB file onto a server, sending and receiving e-mails with large attachments, demonstrating the simultaneous HSD (High Speed Downlink) and HSUPA capabilities and video conference over IP. In addition, the HSUPA and HSDPA calls were also conducted in a car while driving at 50 km/h.