The race to gigabit download speeds is on, and a lot of people are trying to be the first to get there. The end goal is of course, for end users and consumers to actually experience 1Gbps or more download speeds in normal day-to-day usage. For now, gigabit download speeds are only possible in lab settings, but the thing is this – Verizon, Ericsson, and Qualcomm have all proven it is possible.
Getting gigabit download speeds depend on a number of things – you need an ultra-fast modem with technology embedded that makes it capable of handling gigabit speeds, a device to put your super modem in, and a network with infrastructure able to provide said gigabit speeds. These may not be available in consumer networks at the moment, but Qualcomm has the modem, Verizon has the network, and Ericsson is supplying the radios to send the signal.
The 1.07Gbps download speed was achieved with very specific equipment – a Qualcomm Snapdragon X20 LTE modem capable of Cat.18 LTE speeds, and Ericsson supplying their Radio System and LTE software in Verizon’s labs. This download speed was achieved with 12 LTE streams with 3-cell carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO per carrier, and 256 QAM per carrier.
Now, it will take a while for mobile networks all over the world to be able to come up to this standard, but now we’re pretty sure it is possible, because the technology is available. The consumer market just needs to catch up with the current available technology.
SOURCE: Qualcomm
