Hong Kong (China) - Most cellphone users are still waiting for 3G cellphones, generally referred to as the next generation or future cellphones. Researchers in Germany now claim that they have invented the "next future," sort of the future beyond the future, cellular technology, which enables data transmission rates of up to 100 Mb/s.

The technology, which was demonstrated at the recent ITU Telecom World, is based on the idea of using on the concept of employing multiple antennas (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output or short MIMO), a trend we are already seeing in wireless network equipment. Germany's Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), a research division of the government-founded Fraunhofer Institute, now believes that the same principles could be applied to cellular networks to achieve significantly higher data download and upload speeds.

Demonstration of HHI's 100 Mb/s cellphone technology

Test equipment is based on specifications developed within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which has been responsible developing the UMTS standard. The demonstrated technology used two antennas for the base station and the terminal and achieved a download speed of 100 Mb/s and an upload speed of 50 MB/s, according to the HHI. The range of the MIMO cellular system is "a few miles," the organization said.

What makes this approach especially interesting is that downloads and uploads can be processed simultaneously, which opens the door to richer communications on the mobile phone. HHI representatives claim that the sustained bandwidth achievable with the system will be enough to enable web surfing, voice-over-IP and online gaming at the same time.

The HHI did not say when the technology could be commercially available.