KDDI’s Aggressive EV-DO Upgrade

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has reported that KDDI is strengthening its technological and differentiated services lead in Japan by upgrading its CDMA network to so-called Revision A. Rev A’s most compelling benefit will be a dramatic increase in uplink speeds up to 1.8 Mbps and downlink speeds up to 3.1 Mbps, as compared to EV-DO Release 0 that supports speeds up to 153.6 kbps and 2.4Mbps, respectively. KDDI has already announced the availability of two handsets from Toshiba, the W47T and DRAPE, to support the commercial launch of its advanced broadband technology services by December 2006.

This evolution will enable KDDI to introduce delay sensitive applications, VoIP-based video telephony, and other real-time, symmetric and concurrent transmission voice and data applications with quality of service (QoS) features, while evolving its core network to a totally IP-based platform.

Rev A will give KDDI a one-to-two year time-to-market advantage in continuing to offer more compelling and better performing voice, multimedia and broadband data services to its consumer and enterprise customers. The Rev A network upgrade also will provide KDDI with a smooth upgrade path to EV-DO Revisions B and C to enable ultra broadband services within the next few years. Continue >>