The UK mobile phone network Orange has unveiled technology it says will give it a year's headstart over its rivals in providing fast wireless Internet access.

Orange will launch a service using High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HSCSD) technology next month. This will boost current data speeds experienced by users of wireless PC cards from 9.6Kb/s to 28.8Kb/s.

Orange's prototype videophone

Using compression techniques, the company says it can achieve rates of up to 57.6Kb/s.

Orange says its lead is possible because it has more capacity on its network than its rivals, with closely-packed base stations and more of the radio spectrum to implement the technology.

Orange along with Vodafone, Cellnet and One2One are waiting for the next high-speed data system to come on-stream known as GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), promising 171.2Kb/s. But that is still a year away and third-generation phones capable of 2Mb/s are perhaps three years further on.

Videophone in sight

Orange says HSCSD will make possible the introduction of a videophone that will go on sale by next Summer in the shape of a Personal Digital Assistant. It claims it will be a world first on a GSM network.

While there may be no-one to "video-call" initially, the company says a number of services can be summoned on the touch-sensitive screen, such as a weather-map display to accompany or replace a spoken forecast, or a film trailer shown before a cinema ticket is bought using the device.

The phone will also have voice recording, video/voicemail and voice recognition functions. It will employ SCT (Strathclyde Compression Technology) developed by Strathclyde University in collaboration with Orange.

Orange has also been demonstrating services made possible by yet another acronym, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). The WAP standard allows Web pages to be scaled down to simple text. The new WAP phones going on sale in October will have scroll wheels and larger-than-normal displays.

Orange will offer a directory service from launch including news and sports stories, TV and entertainment listings and the ability to check rail timetables.

Orange has more than 3m customers and an 18% share of the UK mobile market.

Earlier this month, its rival Vodafone geared up for WAP with the launch of Vodafone Interactive - subscription-free Internet service provision and a Website portal offering a range of mobile features.