Today, Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) followed up yesterday’s Cat9 carrier aggregation interoperability announcement in conjunction with Ericsson with its own Gobi Modem announcement.

Gobi is Qualcomm’s own branding for its modem line of products, separate from its Snapdragon line of products. Gobi Modems are standalone modem products that are generally found in devices that do not have a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip inside or have a Snapdragon applications processor that doesn’t have a modem built-in. This new line of modems, the Gobi 9×45 line of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) modems follows in the path of the 9×35 family of modems which has yet to even take hold in the market. The MDM9x45 is a successor to the Cat6 MDM9x35 family of 20nm modems from Qualcomm. In fact, the MDM9x35 family of Gobi modems were Qualcomm’s first 20nm products and still are to this day the only 20nm chips Qualcomm has in devices now, until they start shipping Snapdragon 810 and 808 chips in phones in early 2015.

The 9×45 family of Gobi LTE modems are classified as LTE Category 10 modems which are technically classified as LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), which means they are the exact same downlink speed as Category 9 LTE, but with double the uplink speed. This means that if someone were to have a Cat9 modem and got perfect speeds out of it, they would get 450 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload, a pretty uneven performance number. Now, with Cat10, you are doubling the uplink speed to up to 100 Mbps, meaning that with Cat10 you see no downlink speed increases, but rather a doubling of the uplink speed to up to 100 Mbps. In addition to announcing the new Cat10 9×45 modem, Qualcomm also announced their second generation RF360 envelope tracker, the QFE1300 which is also sampling to customers along with the MDM9x45 modems and should be in devices in 2015.

Much like the Cat9 announcement yesterday, in order to achieve these 450 Mbps speeds, the MDM9x45 modems will need to utilize 60 MHz 3X CA (carrier aggregation) by combining three different 60 MHz bands in order to deliver such blazing speeds. It also requires 40 MHz 2x CA in order to be able to do the 100 Mbps uplink speeds. The QFE3100 is designed for a 30% smaller board area and enhanced power efficiency as compared to the previous generation, as well as allows improved calibration and implementation tools to ease Envelope Tracking design-in for OEMs and accelerate commercial deployment. This new generation of envelope tracker is once again designed to bring down the overall power consumption of the phone when using cellular data when paired with the Qualcomm MDM9x45 modem, much like the QFE1100 when paired with the MDM9x35.

And all of these speeds are fantastic to have, but one of the biggest problems is that even if there is a carrier in the US remotely capable of having three 20 MHz blocks of LTE in a single market, they also have to have the backbone to support anything remotely close to 450 Mbps downloads and 100 Mbps uploads. Right now, the carriers are severely hampering the speed of innovation, much like the ISPs do in the wired world. In fact, most of the current modems shipping in phones like the iPhone 6, LG G3, Sony Xperia Z3, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4 and many other flagship phones all have modems capable of speeds up to 150 Mbps with CA. Yet, the highest speeds I have ever seen in the US have been 80 Mbps, just slightly over half of the speed that our phones are capable of. And if you were to take most flagship phones around your city and test it virtually any time of day, the fastest you’ll realistically get is around 30-40 Mbps up or down.

So, even though Qualcomm is clearly leading the pack with LTE innovations and LTE-A, the carriers are really limiting the value of Qualcomm’s innovations as now Qualcomm’s competitors can merely come out with Cat4 LTE modems and still achieve similar speeds with minimal effort.

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Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) have jointly announced that they have successfully tested the world’s first inter-company interoperability between Qualcomm’s Cat9 LTE (Category 9) MSM mobile chipsets and Ericsson’s LTE-A (LTE-Advanced) network infrastructure.

This test was done between the two companies in order to prove that interoperability is already possible on Cat9 hardware from both companies. Since, Qualcomm is both an infrastructure and client chipset company while Ericsson is only infrastructure since the company folded up the ST-Ericsson’s joint venture that produced competing products to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors.

The two companies were able to achieve the Cat9 450 Mbps speeds thanks to carrier aggregation (combining multiple frequencies/bands) that Qualcomm’s chipsets and Ericsson’s infrastructure are both capable of doing. Ericsson actually even tells us which hardware they accomplished this on, their RBS 6000 family of base stations for macro and small cell networks. Which means these are fairly small base stations and fairly short distance connections. Additionally, thanks to Ericsson’s specs of the RBS 6000, we know that Qualcomm and Ericsson used 60 MHz 3x carrier aggregation in order to deliver the Cat9 LTE speeds of 450 Mbps.

Qualcomm, unfortunately, doesn’t tell us which Snapdragon chipset this is that’s running the new 450 Mbps speeds, but they do say that it is a future chipset which could be something coming next year or something 2 or 3 years from now. We simply can’t know. But what we do know is that the carriers are very very unlikely to deliver anything anywhere near these speeds. The unfortunate reality, however, is that right now there are no carriers in the US even technically capable of delivering three 20 MHz different bands of  LTE based on their spectrum allocation. And even if they had the spectrum holdings to enable Cat9 LTE with carrier aggregation, they wouldn’t even have the backend to support it.

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So, last night T-Mobile made a lot of announcements with their new Uncarrier 5 event, that follows their Uncarrier 3.0 and 4.0 which eventually rolled into their Uncarrier 6 strategy as well. So, we can call last night’s event Uncarrier 5-6. Anyways, last night T-Mobile made three big announcements, mostly circled around their network and how they plan to make their network the best in the US at the most reasonable prices of all their competitors.

T-Mobile’s Uncarrier 5.0 Event, Image Credit: The Verge

Let’s talk about one of the most interesting things T-Mobile has announced so far at the event, and that’s their 7 day free test drive of T-Mobile’s network. T-Mobile’s John Legere basically announced that anyone that wants to try T-Mobile out can do so with an iPhone for free for 7 days to see whether or not the network is up to their expectations. And even more importantly, if it is better than what they’re getting with their current carrier. With this strategy, T-Mobile is being brilliant because one of the easiest ways to sell people something is by letting them try it themselves. And the truth is that its very hard to know whether or not you want to switch to a carrier without actually trying it for yourself. By giving people iPhones to try out the network T-Mobile solves this problem and already puts a device in people’s hands that they’ll likely want to keep anyways. This is something that none of the other carriers are doing and brings down the barrier for consumers to test out the network before they commit, which many people worry about when it comes to T-Mobile. T-Mobile was infamous for horrible coverage and nowadays, most of those issues are resolved but some people don’t know that and this is a perfect way for people to test that out.

T-Mobile Test Drive

In addition to the T-Mobile 7 Day Test Drive, they also announced that they would be further accelerating their rollout of VoLTE and the initial roll-out of Wideband LTE which is just 15 MHz+15 MHz carrier aggregation feature that should allow speeds in excess of 100 Mbps. T-Mobile has tested speeds that nearly read 150 Mbps, but unfortunately for my market T-Mobile is limiting users to 40 Mbps, which makes it a bit difficult to use any sort of Wideband features, even if my phone’s cellular modem supports it.  Currently, 16 of T-Mobile’s markets have enough spectrum to be able to support 15 MHz + 15 MHz carrier aggregation and they will rapidly continue to roll this out as they continue to update their network. It is nice to see the carriers finally supporting carrier aggregation as devices like the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A will make good use of the network’s carrier aggregation features.

The below image is a Speedtest that someone took while at the T-Mobile Uncarrier 5.0 event, Myriam Joire, who was able to test with the network that was available inside the venue. We’ve got permission to use this screenshot so that you guys can see for yourselves exactly what kinds of speeds are possible in the near future or right now depending on where you live (see the list above).

Carrier Aggregation – Image courtesy of @Tnkgrl (Myriam Joire)

There were also a recent set of nationwide speed tests of networks across the country and T-Mobile came in first or second in many of them, including PCMag’s own which found T-Mobile almost on par with Verizon, who charges significantly more and has much less pro-consumer policies. And if you look at the tested speeds below, in the San Diego test you can see that T-Mobile had the best average speeds in all tests which really is what matters most when you talk about network speeds since the average is what you will usually see, as opposed to the top speed or slowest speed. However, in San Diego, T-Mobile is also limiting users to 40 Mbps (as I have been complaining about) and can now confirm that PCMag also had the same experience that I have.

In addition to their accelerated LTE Wideband roll-out, T-Mobile is also rolling out more of their Voice over LTE (VoLTE). T-Mobile is looking to beat their competitors to the punch with their HD voice/VoLTE features that would enable you to have very high quality voice in addition to sharing that signal over your data connection, reducing the amount of radios that have to stay on while a phone is connected to the network. The significantly improved audio will only be available on certain devices, but since T-Mobile announced their VoLTE roll-out they have already launched VoLTE in 15 markets and are expecting to launch nationwide by the end of the year.

In addition to the network improvements and the 7 Day Test Drive, T-Mobile made a pretty significant announcement which they call Uncarrier 6.0 by ‘setting your music free’. Essentially, what T-Mobile is doing is that they are no longer counting music streaming against your monthly data plan if you don’t have an unlimited data plan. The apps that T-Mobile currently will not count towards your monthly data plan usage are: Pandora, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Slacker, and Spotify. On top of that, T-Mobile will allow users to vote for music streaming apps that aren’t currently included, which will likely add Google Play Music which oddly isn’t included on T-Mobile’s list of ‘approved’ apps. This is a pretty significant move for T-Mobile to make because a lot of people’s data plans get used up quite a bit by music streaming applications, especially Spotify when you use the high quality feature which can chew up a gigabyte a month or more of data on its own.

Overall, all of these developments are welcome ones by consumers, but there are some problems with T-Mobile’s music streaming pertaining to Net Neutrality that we’ll be addressing in another article.

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Did you just buy a Galaxy S5? Did you wait? Because if you waited, you’ll be glad you did. SAMMOBILE just posted all of the official details about the Galaxy S5 LTE-A (LTE-Advanced) and just pulled it, but thanks to Google Cache, we’ve got all the details. What makes this new phone so much better than the Galaxy S5? Well, it isn’t anything like what the Galaxy S4 LTE-A was to the Galaxy S4. The Galaxy S5 LTE-A is actually a complete and utter upgrade over the current Galaxy S5. First and foremost, it has LTE-Advanced which makes it incredibly capable of delivering high-speed data that reaches download speeds of up to 225 Mbps. This phone is going to be launched in Korea first because their networks are the most capable of delivering anywhere near those speeds. It can achieve those speeds thanks to carrier aggregation support along with wideband support, which are currently only supported by Korean telecoms, but some American carriers are working towards supporting LTE-Advanced relatively soon. However, things like Verizon’s XLTE should not be mistaken for LTE-Advanced.

What makes it all the more interesting is that it will have an upgraded 2560 x 1440 resolution display, the one that everyone was expecting from the Galaxy S5 when it was originally launched. Remember that the Galaxy S5 only came out 2 months ago and now we’re already seeing the S5 with the newer higher resolution display. Because the display will remain the same size as the Galaxy S5 and as a result of the higher resolution and the same screen size it ends up having a pixel density of 577 PPI. It will also have and improved SoC as well, with the Snapdragon 805 SoC which we’ve already benchmarked and already know what to expect in terms of performance. It will also have 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage as well as a microSD card slot that will support a MicroSDXC card of up to 128GB.

Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A

Beyond that, the rest of the hardware stays essentially the same as the standard Galaxy S5 in terms of the camera (16 MP) and battery (2800 mAh) as well as the water and dust resistance.  The software will likely remain the same as well, but the thing is that the higher display and new SoC should run the Samsung interface much more smoothly. Fortunately for Samsung, the Galaxy S5 LTE-A will at first only be made available in Korea on SK Telecom and will launch later on KT and LGU+. The phone itself will be available later this week, possibly June 19th (according to SAMMOBILE), and will have a pretty strong price of $919, which may just be an introductory price to keep it out of the price range of the standard Galaxy S5. As far as US consumers go, we have no idea when we can expect to see the Galaxy S5 LTE-A, but the truth is that we’ll probably see it towards the end of the summer after the original Galaxy S5 has had some time to sell out a bit more than the current 2 months.

Samsung has been criticized for making their product cycles far too short, much like they do with their tablets. However, one cannot criticize a company for being innovate and constantly innovating and pushing those innovations to their consumers. But the truth is that Samsung likely felt pressured to release the Galaxy S5 when they did because of HTC’s One M8 and LG’s G3. Not to mention they also wanted to get their phone out sooner rather than later when you consider that Apple’s iPhone 6 will likely be coming out this fall.

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T-Mobile is the first to roll out their VoLTE network starting with Seattle today, followed by AT&T and Verizon tomorrow. However, these are not nation-wide deployments as they will be slowly rolling VoLTE (Voice over LTE) out slowly across their networks in very specific markets little by little, eventually reaching full network saturation. Additionally, it appears as though there are only certain devices on each network that will be able to utilize VoLTE and those devices also vary from carrier to carrier. But ultimately, the good thing about VoLTE deployments is that it does mean that users on all three carriers will be able to communicate in high quality voice at the same time as they download data, while using the same connection for both. This means that Verizon users will finally be able to make and receive calls while using their data and should free up some spectrum in the future to be refarmed for LTE.

We actually heard from some industry insiders that Verizon’s VoLTE network has actually been up and running on a nearly national scale for quite some time but they simply couldn’t get it to work properly, which explains the slow roll out from Verizon. Verizon is traditionally one of the first companies to launch a new technology and to do in on a large scale. When they launched their LTE network they turned it on simultaneously in 32 “football” markets and it was incredibly fast. Now, however, with VoLTE they appear to be taking longer and aren’t necessarily leading, even though T-Mobile’s official roll out coming a day before Verizon and AT&T’s isn’t really that big of a deal.

In terms of AT&T’s plans, they plan to begin the roll out of their VoLTE network starting tomorrow. Ironically, our only source for this is based upon the fact that a rumor from Engadget stated that AT&T would beat Verizon to launching their VoLTE network, but nowhere mentions T-Mobile or even MetroPCS (who actually launched theirs in 2012). Who is missing from all this talk of VoLTE? Sprint. Sure, AT&T and Verizon are both big and rolling out VoLTE isn’t easy, we know that both carriers have been having problems and those problems are probably very similar on both networks. However, T-Mobile’s network is likely going to roll out more VoLTE markets than AT&T or Verizon will and probably in a shorter period of time because they have what many believe to be a more to-spec network. However, this doesn’t change the fact that Sprint’s LTE network is simply so weak and sparse that a VoLTE network is merely impossible to consider until their network actually reaches acceptable levels of service. Or at least somewhere comparable to T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.

Now, if you happen to be one of the blessed souls that reside within the great city of Seattle, and are a T-Mobile customer, then you must have one of the three following devices in order to be able to use T-Mobile’s new VoLTE. To experience VoLTE, you must have either an LG G Flex, a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 or a Samsung Galaxy Light. T-Mobile customers in Seattle just need to go into device “Settings,” “General” and “About device” to get the latest Software Update. Once you get that update, you should be able to experience this new Rich Communications Service on your device and use LTE for both voice and data and very likely experience a much higher quality of voice service.

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Verizon’s new XLTE service is merely a new branding scheme for the company to promote their new 2×20 MHz AWS band of data service. As of right now, most users are on Verizon’s 700 MHz frequency which is slowly getting overcrowded, so naturally Verizon would want to deploy a second frequency (which they have available). They are doing this by utilizing their 1700 MHz frequency AWS block  (similar to what T-Mobile has) in a 2×20 MHz implementation which ultimately results in speeds at or exceeding 80 Mbps. Right now, on Verizon’s 2×10 MHz block in their 700 MHz spectrum block most users are getting around half that, at 40 Mbps or less. Some users are getting more, but not much more.

So, Verizon’s XLTE as of yesterday has launched in a few dozen cities on a handful of devices and you don’t have to do anything other than live in the right city and have the right phone in order to get these faster AWS speeds. We would name the exact cities, but there are literally too many to name in order to not just give you a list of like 50 or 60 cities. The link above will let you know if your city is on Verizon’s XLTE list or not. However, even if you’re in an XLTE area, you will still need to have an XLTE enabled device and those aren’t necessarily that common since they have to be newer devices with the right modems inside. A full list of devices can be found on Verizon’s website.

In terms of smartphones, you have the following phones:

iPhone 5S, LG G2, Nokia Lumia Icon, Samsung Galaxy S5, Droid Mini by Motorola, HTC One M8, Apple iPhone 5C, DROID Maxx by Motorola, Moto X, LG Lucid 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung ATIV SE, HTC One Max, Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z30 and the Blackberry Q10

if you have a Verizon LTE tablet you need to have the following tablets to have XLTE service:

LG G Pad 8.3 LTE, Apple iPad Air, Apple iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

And if you have a Verizon hotspot or USB modem you need to have  the following devices:
Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 5510L, Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MHS291L and the Verizon 4G LTE USB Modem UML295

While we haven’t had a chance to test these speeds quite yet, we’ll be sure to report back to you relatively soon with our Verizon HTC One M8 (which is capable of XLTE) and since we’re usually between San Diego and San Francisco, both markets are capable of supporting Verizon’s new XLTE service. Do keep in mind, however, that this is not LTE-Advanced, which is the next version of LTE service that is already running in places like Korea where they are able to get speeds in excess of 100 Mbps over commercially available devices. LTE-Advanced brings a whole host of features to smartphones, many of which are already inside of those phones, but the networks are simply not ready for quite yet. We know that Verizon is already working on their LTE-Advanced network and that this is likely a step forward in that direction in order to help them prepare for the jump.

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