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Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies have successfully concluded the world’s first network integration with chipsets for 3GPP standard features HS FACH, E-FACH and UE DRX. These three features will help operators to reduce signalling in their networks, cut power consumption in devices and give an improved user experience.

High signal loads have an impact on network performance, a challenge operators are now facing due to the rapid uptake of smartphones and increasing use of applications. Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (QTI), have successfully concluded the world’s first network integration with chipsets for 3GPP standard features HS FACH, E-FACH and UE DRX. These three features will help operators to reduce signaling in their networks, lower power consumption in devices and give an improved user experience.

Serge Willenegger, Vice President of Product Management for QTI, said: “This is a major achievement for smartphone users. With QTI’s popular MSM8960 platform as the lead chipset, this demonstrates QTI’s commitment to introducing technology-leading features for smartphones. Since the features are software-driven, they can be propagated across our existing portfolio of HSPA+ R8 capable chipsets as operators launch these capabilities. The cooperation with Ericsson helps us get the market traction needed while maximizing the benefits for operators and users.”

When these features become commercially available in the coming months in QTI chipsets, operator networks will start to realize signaling load reduction and smartphone users will start to realize increased battery life.

Nils Viklund, Director of Product Line WCDMA Radio Access Network at Ericsson said: “In our smartphone lab analysis we have seen that our customer networks are heavily loaded with small data packets generated by chatty smartphone applications. Our advancements in this area will help operators handle traffic more efficiently and serve more smartphone users. Working with Qualcomm Technologies to bring this feature to the market is an important step for the overall ecosystem, as smartphones become the norm.”

The growing trend is smaller, burstier data packets in operator networks, due to increased use of applications and push services like instant messaging and social media. Up to 60 percent of the data bursts in smartphone networks are below one kilobyte. HS FACH, E-FACH and UE DRX enable operators to provide more efficient means to handle these small data bursts.

New features include HS FACH improved for downlink and E-FACH improved for uplink – uplink is important for social networking apps. These two features together reduce signaling, improving bandwidth capacity and providing a faster experience for the end user.The UE DRX feature saves device battery power.

The solution will enable consumers to experience a 2-4 times faster response time as compared to today’s user experience.