Nokia Siemens doubles EDGE speeds

Good news for iPhone users out there: Nokia Siemens Networks reckons it’s cracked a way to double the speeds EDGE networks are capable of. The networking company says it can now get 592 kbps out of EDGE by way of a software upgrade.

The company says the EDGE speed boost will be around from the third quarter of this year and that it already has plans for the next evolution of EDGE, called EGPRS 2, which will promise downlink speeds of up to 1.2 Mbps and will double uplink speed to up to 473 kbps.

It’s always good news when operators step up speeds but with most EDGE networks already replaced with HSDPA et al, how much use is NSN’s upgrade going to be? For city dwellers, not much, but for those far out of town where EDGE is the fall back, it’ll be a welcome development.