Scanning today’s news about a new mobile-phone chip from Broadcom Corp., one factoid caught my eye: the chip enables 5.8 Mbps upload speeds!

That’s faster than my 2 Mbps upload speed from the Time Warner Cable Extreme service I get at home. It’s faster than Verizon‘s fiber-optic-based FiOS Internet service (maxes at 5 Mbps upload). The 5.8 number seemed so outrageous, I decided to double check with Broadcom.

Yup, it’s true, says Henry Rael, a Broadcom spokesman. He says:

Yes, the HSUPA standard enables 5.8 Mbps in its ideal state. Like any networking technology, of course, real world conditions bring that down,but that is what the standard enables.

Ahh yes. Technology can do wonderful things but often consumers aren’t able to take full advantage of it. We’ve battled this for years especially in the cell-phone industry where cool phones have Bluetooth or USB ports. But the phone company or other hardware limits how those features can be used (ie: no sharing files!)

It was only after talking to storage-company Fabrik earlier that I learned Hi-Speed USB transfers data realistically at speeds of around 200 Mbps, as opposed to the highly publicized 480 Mbps.

Since the point of faster upload speeds on a cell phone is to quickly share larger files — video, photos, etc. — it’ll be interesting to see what speeds us consumers will actually get. If it’s 5 Mbps-plus, sign me up at home!

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