China Mobile Terminal Co., Ltd. and China Mobile Zhejiang Company jointly with Qualcomm, based on the TD-LTE "4G+" network, successfully completed the first field test of gigabit rate based on commercial terminals in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The downlink peak rate reached more than 700Mbps, with an average rate of about 680Mbps. The success of this outfield test indicates that China Mobile has the ability to upgrade its "4G+" network to the world's most advanced level, and lays a solid foundation for the upcoming 5G era.
In this outfield test, Samsung's latest flagship mobile phone Galaxy S8 | S8+equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile platform is used, and the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem is integrated. As a gigabit LTE network facing the continuous evolution of 5G, China Mobile used the most advanced connection technologies in the industry, such as three carrier aggregation (CA), 4x4 MIMO, 256-QAM, to achieve the transmission speed of gigabit LTE, which can bring users a wireless connection experience "like fiber".
Qualcomm has always been relying on Snapdragon mobile platform to continuously promote the evolution and development of 4G LTE network in China and all regions of the world, and has worked closely with OEM manufacturers to bring mobile terminals that support faster connection experience to users. In January this year, Qualcomm、Telstra、 Ericsson and NETGEAR have launched the world's first commercial gigabit LTE network and terminal in Sydney, Australia. In fact, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon X16 modem as early as February 2016, which supports 1Gbps network speed; On the basis of leading the development of gigabit LTE, Qualcomm once again strengthened its own advantages and launched the second generation of gigabit LTE modem in February this year, the Snapdragon X20 LTE chipset based on the 10 nanometer FinFET process technology, which can bring the download speed of LTE Category 18 up to 1.2Gbps, achieving a 20% increase in the download speed compared with the previous generation of products.
Through mobile terminals supporting gigabit LTE networks, users' connection experience will be significantly improved, especially in terms of virtual reality (VR) content streaming, cloud storage, and high fidelity video or music caching. Taking virtual reality (VR) as an example, the gigabit LTE network can fully support immersive and smooth streaming of panoramic VR video content, allowing users to experience unprecedented VR experience. Taking cloud storage as an example, through the gigabit LTE network, the user experience of reading files in the cloud is close to the experience of real-time reading in the local. In the future, with the continued development of gigabit LTE networks, it is expected that cloud disks will replace local storage.
At present, Samsung, ZTE HTC、 Sony and Motorola plan or have released mobile terminals supporting gigabit LTE networks. In addition, ASUS, HP and Lenovo will also launch Windows 10 devices based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile PC platform, and are expected to bring new mobile connection experience to users through gigabit LTE connection.
As an important milestone on the road to 5G, gigabit LTE will benefit the entire wireless industry in many ways, including more efficient use of spectrum resources, providing users with better throughput, and bringing new types of service opportunities. More importantly, the gigabit LTE network will continue to play an important role in the upcoming 5G era.
