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Mobile equipment maker Ericsson was able to reach real-world speeds of 100 Mbps in the latest tests of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular data gear, engineers write in the company's house journal, Ericsson Review. On the street using 2.6 GHz base stations and commercial antennas, engineers pulled in 170 Mbps in raw throughput with the optimum antenna and channel configuration, and they also tested a method that delivered 130 Mbps but could use double the bandwidth with no alterations for 260 Mbps. Actual net throughput was far less, but still 20 to 100 times current typical 3G network rates.

LTE is the next generation of cellular data networking for GSM networks. In the U.S., AT&T has already committed to it, while Verizon Wireless will switch from its traditional use of Qualcomm's CDMA standard to deploy LTE as it develops more advanced networks. LTE is part of a set of loosely defined fourth-generation (4G) standards that will carriers hope will leapfrog today's 3G networks, and offer real competition to wired services, including today's fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-node deployments. Sprint opted for WiMax, which currently delivers far lower speeds than are projected for LTE, but it works today and has a roadmap for improvements.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081024-latest-cell-data-standard-tops-100-mbps-in-ericsson-test.html