What is HSUPA?

There are a number of new devices being planned that list HSUPA as one of their connection protocols. The HTC P5500 and the HTC P4550 are two such devices.

High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a 3G mobile telephony protocol in the HSPA family with up-link speeds up to 5.76 Mbit/s.

The specifications for HSUPA are included in Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Release 6 standard published by 3GPP.

Similar to HSDPA, HSUPA uses a packet scheduler, but it operates on a request-grant principle where the UEs request a permission to send data and the scheduler decides when and how many UEs will be allowed to do so. A request for transmission contains data about the state of the transmission buffer and the queue at the UE and its available power margin.

In addition to this scheduled mode of transmission the standards also allows a self-initiated transmission mode from the UEs, denoted non-scheduled. The non-scheduled mode can, for example, be used for VoiP services for which even the reduced TTI and the Node-B based scheduler will not be able to provide the very short delay time and constant bandwidth required.

HSUPA Category Max Uplink Speed

• Category 1 – 0.73 Mbps
• Category 2 – 1.46 Mbps
• Category 3 – 1.46 Mbps
• Category 4 – 2.93 Mbps
• Category 5 – 2.00 Mbps
• Category 6 – 5.76 Mbps

There is no date given for a planned UK deployment of HSUPA.

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, HSUPA, 3G, mobile telephony]