In a new worldwide industry first, T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), have exceeded Gigabit speeds using evolved, commercially-available 4G LTE technology. In tests at T-Mobile’s lab last week, download speeds of 1.175 Gbps were achieved on T-Mobile’s LTE network utilizing Nokia’s 4.9G network powered by the Nokia AirScale Base Station together with the Snapdragon X20 LTE modem.
Technology used in the tests included:
- Nokia 4.9G powered by AirScale Base Station
- A Snapdragon X20 LTE modem mobile test device, supporting Downlink Category 18 for theoretical peak download speeds up to 1.2 Gbps
- 12 independent streams of LTE data
- 4X4 MIMO, 256 QAM and three carrier aggregation across 60 MHz of downlink spectrum on T-Mobile’s network
Using 12 simultaneous independent LTE data streams between the device and network enables a theoretical peak download speed of 1.2 Gbps. The tests demonstrated that commercially available 4G technologies can deliver unprecedented download speeds well beyond what customers experience today.
“Every meaningful network innovation in recent years has come first from T-Mobile. We already have America’s fastest and most advanced LTE network, and we’ve built it to advance faster for customers than anybody else out there,” said Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile. ג€These tests with Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies prove that T-Mobile customers have a lot more speed to look forward to from our LTE network as we evolve to 5G.”
“Using the Snapdragon X20 LTE modem we are breaking through the Gigabit barrier, further enhancing network capacity and real user data rates,” said Cristiano Amon, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and president, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “And working with Nokia and T-Mobile, using our second-generation Gigabit LTE modem, we’ve now shown the steady strides we are making as we progress on the path to 5G. User devices supporting these speeds are expected to be made commercially available in the first half of 2018.”
“We are helping customers maximize the value of their existing networks by bringing performance closer to that expected from 5G in the future,” said Marc Rouanne, president, mobile networks, Nokia. “With this key test, using T-Mobile’s network and Qualcomm Technologies’ modem, we have not only broken the Gigabit speed barrier but have exceeded existing performance using Nokia 4.9G technology, showing the way forward for higher-quality user experiences and services with fiber-like speeds over mobile connections.”
Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies will demonstrate the 1.2Gbps data rates at their booths at Mobile World Congress Americas 2017 in San Francisco, from September 12 to 14.