Qualcomm's X20 Modem Busts the Gigabit Barrier

We oasis't even seen the first gigabit LTE smartphones yet, but Qualcomm is already working on the 2nd generation. With its X20 modem, announced today, the dominant mobile bit-maker says information technology can push speeds of up to 1.2Gbps on the spectrum.

"With X20, nosotros are really expanding the addressable market for this capability," said Serge Willenegger, Qualcomm SVP for production management. "You only need 10MHz of licensed spectrum, plus LAA, to become gigabit speeds on the new modem. That was actually the purpose, to really propagate gigabit equally far as possible."

Fast networks require lots of airwaves. Until now, carriers have been broadening their highways by knitting together unlike lanes of licensed spectrum. The X20's trickiest trick is to heavily contain LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), which uses Wi-Fi airwaves to supplement carriers' licensed spectrum. T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T take all said they're working on LAA. Dart, meanwhile, has so much spectrum in its 2.5GHz band that information technology may be able to do the 5x carrier aggregation necessary for 1.2Gbps without dipping into the Wi-Fi puddle.

The X20 allows carriers to cast off older networks by enabling dual-SIM, dual-VoLTE. That means carriers in countries where two-SIM phones are pop don't have to lay down or continue maintaining their 2G networks for voice. That encourages new carriers like Jio, an LTE-only carrier in India.

It also supports several new frequency bands that are coming online in the United states in the next few years: the 600MHz band, which is being auctioned right now, and the iii.5GHz CBRS band, which is currently existence negotiated.

What Does Gigabit LTE Mean?

Qualcomm is pushing hard towards gigabit LTE to bridge the gap between today's LTE networks and upcoming, multi-gigabit 5G NR (New Radio) networks. 5G NR is designed to operate best on higher frequencies than existing LTE networks, and so LTE is going to be around for quite a while. With gigabit speeds on LTE, a fallback from 5G to LTE—especially in the early days of 5G rollouts, which may extend through 2022—feels like a gentle decline and not a precipitous drop.

That ways application developers can start working on some 5G-type applications, similar VR teaching and gaming, before the full 5G rollouts happen. The existent interruption volition come in latency. LTE networks have much more latency than 5G NR will, so LTE won't be able to replace NR for applications like autonomous cars.

Also, the X20 and X16 advertise themselves equally gigabit LTE, but you shouldn't await 1Gbps LTE speeds to every phone—or to whatsoever phones, for that matter. The 1.2Gbps speed is a theoretical maximum, and information technology gets dragged down by network conditions and past older devices on the network. Still, though, Qualcomm has shown that consistent 100Mbps speeds can be possible, which begins to enable new uses like entirely cloud-based applications that are just equally responsive equally local ones.

The X20 will announced in "commercial products" in the first half of 2022. That may include phones, as it'due south near certain to be part of Qualcomm'due south 2022 Snapdragon phone chipset, the successor to this year's Snapdragon 835.

"Historically, nosotros've announced a discrete modem so we denote the new Snapdragon at some bespeak. Unless something incorrect happens, we integrate the new modem into the new Snapdragon," Willenegger said.

Qualcomm needs to announce these things far in advance to prevent a chicken-and-egg problem from developing with carriers. Now that carriers know what Qualcomm's modems will back up and when, they tin spend the big bucks to build their networks with confidence.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/networking-communications-software/14104/qualcomms-x20-modem-busts-the-gigabit-barrier

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