Comarco, Inc. announced that it has added High-Speed Uplink Packet Access support to its evolving Symphony range of products. HSUPA is a 3G mobile telephony protocol in the High Speed Packet Access family with up-link speeds up to 5.76 Mbit/s currently, and with speed of up to 11.5 Mbit/s expected with 3GPP release 7. WCDMA mobile network data transmissions are significantly improved by two technologies - HSUPA and HSDPA. These technologies combine to give business users wireless broadband speeds that allow true mobile office functionality to receive and send large file attachments; and private customers power to download video, play interactive games, and send high-resolution clips.

    HSUPA is an extremely efficient mechanism for sending high speed data uploads on UMTS networks and is being offered in the latest generation wireless data cards. HSUPA complements the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) downlink technology which is widely deployed in UMTS networks worldwide and which is already fully supported across Comarco's technology platform. HSUPA enables high-speed symmetrical data communications such as Voice over Internet Protocol and interactive multimedia by providing better data rates and shorter delay.

    Symphony Multi also offers a wealth of real time and post test diagnostic information including layer one quality information metrics, coverage values, and other critical parameters vital for optimization and maintaining quality performance of IP services on HSUPA connections. Symphony supports a growing range of HSUPA data cards including Huawei and Sierra Wireless devices offering up to 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2.0 Mbps HSUPA.

    "The addition of HSUPA support represents another step forward for our Symphony-Multi Platform and for the expanding alliance with our European partner, Ascom," said Mark Chapman, senior vice president and general manager of Comarco. "The Symphony-Multi already supports GSM/EDGE, HSDPA, CDMA1x and EVDO Rev A technologies, amongst others. With the addition of HSUPA, our collective expertise in the measurement of multiple diverse wireless systems now spans all major 3G and advanced air interfaces. This makes us uniquely positioned to offer Quality of Service (QoS) and competitive benchmarking products to operators in global markets where an increasing number of competing technologies are deployed."

    However, these new services place increasing demands on the radio link. Maintaining acceptable user experience and a high level of overall QoS requires complete and accurate end-to-end measurement data with details of uplink interference. Comarco's Symphony Multi supports a range of end-to-end tests which permit engineers to test and optimize High Speed Packet Access networks and evaluate their performance from the user's perspective.

    Reports include an IP and FTP throughput summary with measurements grouped according to the radio technology. The Symphony Multi post-processing system, QVP, has also been upgraded to support HSUPA data. QVP Network Analyzer and QVP Map provide full support for HSUPA functionality and operators can view Ec/Io, RSCP, and scrambling codes of the HSUPA serving and non-serving radio links amongst other parameters.