DoCoMo demos HSDPA downloads

Following last week's showcasing of three prototype HSDPA handsets, K-Tai Watch reports on a DoCoMo press demo that put NEC's current FOMA handset side-by-side with its HSDPA model. Rather than emphasising speed up front, the focus was on quality, with the HSDPA handset able to stream a 1.8MB video file in the same time it took for the FOMA handset to pull down 434KB (the HSDPA handset is shown on the right here). They also did a straight FTP speed test, which showed HSDPA as capable of shifting 5MB in 14 seconds, with transfer speeds peaking at 3.2Mbps. That's a little under the stated max of 3.6Mbps and will likely drop off further in actual usage situations, however.

Now all they need are some service ideas to make use of the extra bandwidth, and a bit more zing on the handset front -- some more risk-taking, in short. The fatter pipe is all well and good, but au still seems to have all the good ideas when it comes to content.

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]