The newest LTE radios offer peak speeds up to 2 gigabits. With the right phone, you should receive 150-700 megabits down, occasionally more. These are lab results. Actual deployments are a year or two away. Huawei's BANDSpeed will increase that. BandSpeed also is a while away.

Today's best networks in the field peak at 750-1200 megabits. With the latest phones, you will often get speeds of 100-400 megabits and occasionally higher. These lab results suggest LTE speeds can go up 50% to 100% in the next few years.  Uploads are more likely to be 50-150 megabits, unfortunately.

At left are speed tests from PCMag editor Sascha Segan. He achieved over 500 megabits ar a T-Mobile cell site at 45th St. and Third Avenue in Manhattan, as you can see in the illustration. Today, tens of thousands of locations worldwide offer "peak" downloads of a gigabit. 

There is little new technology needed for these speeds, just more channels and additional MIMO.

The Qualcomm X24 modem chipset is designed for speeds of 2 gigabits and was probably used in these tests. The specs are below, after the carrier announcements. Today's best networks mostly use 2-4 bands with 20 MHz of spectrum each. (CA - Carrier aggregation.) The X24 is designed to use up to seven bands, some LAA offering more megahertz. It also can support 4 antennas across 5 bands. (4x4 MIMO.) These features are well understood, are a natural evolution, and are in the standard.

The radios have more capacity because Moore's Law improvements produce more powerful chips. 

Three carrier announcements and Qualcomm's information on the X24 here. 

Peak mobile speed reaches 1.5Gbps

Singapore, 17 September 2018 – Singtel said today they have achieved peak LTE speeds of 1.5 Gbps using five-carrier aggregation[1]. This is the fastest in Asia and 50 percent faster than prevailing 1 Gbps speed.

Singtel will gradually deploy the new speed across the island as more spectrum bands are allocated for the LTE network. Smartphones supporting 1.5 Gbps speeds are scheduled to be launched in 2019.

“We are constantly investing in innovative technologies to boost network speeds, enhance coverage and expand capacity to give our customers the best network experience,” said Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Singapore and Group Chief Digital Officer at Singtel. “As our customers’ lifestyles increasingly revolve around their smartphones, we do our best to ensure they enjoy fast, reliable, comprehensive and secure connectivity.”

The enhanced network speed was achieved in collaboration with Ericsson with a first-of-its-kind carrier aggregation of five carriers, which boosts network bandwidth. A combination of two 1800 MHz frequencies, together with 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz and TDD 2500 MHz spectrum bands and technologies such as FDD & TDD, 256QAM and 4X4 MIMO was used to achieve the peak speed of 1.5 Gbps. When introduced in the live network, such capability improves user experience and enhances network capacity. For instance, customers can download a two-hour 4K video in eight minutes.

“Ericsson has been a leader in pioneering technologies,” said Mr Martin Wiktorin, Head of Ericsson Singapore, Brunei & the Philippines. “By leveraging five-carrier aggregation across both FDD & TDD, we continue to lead the way to meet customers speed and capacity demands. We are proud to be working on new capabilities and advancements on LTE.”

Singtel and Ericsson will launch a pilot 5G network in Singapore in the fourth quarter of 2018. Singtel was recently named Asia’s Best Mobile Carrier by Telecom Asia and recognised by global metrics leader, Ookla, for having the fastest mobile network speeds in Singapore.

[1] Achieved in a lab environment on a Viavi Solutions and Stellent Networks’ TM500 test system 

 

Telstra leads with the world’s first connection of a 5G commercial device

• World’s fastest 4G device with 2Gbps#  capability demonstrated on Australia’s fastest mobile network

...

Telstra today also showcased the continued strength of its 4G technology through a demonstration of the new NETGEAR Nighthawk® M2 Mobile Router, with a live speed test revealing the 2Gbps#  peak speed capability of the device on Telstra’s mobile network.

“With the NETGEAR Nighthawk® M2 Mobile Router expected to be available in early 2019, we are gearing up to launch the world’s fastest 4G device on Australia’s fastest mobile network*.

“Hand in hand with our 5G rollout and supported by our network partner Ericsson, the 200 base stations we are enabling with 5G before the end of the year will also support peak speeds approaching 2Gbps# for enhanced 4G,” Mr Penn said.

Telstra recently announced it had started switching on 5G technology, making Australia’s largest and fastest* mobile network the first in the country to be 5G ready.  130 sites around Australia have now been 5G-enabled, with another 70 to be upgraded before the end of this calendar year. This series of network upgrades will not only make the Telstra Mobile Network 5G ready but is expected to deliver world leading 4G (LTE) speeds.

Telstra’s rollout of 5G is the culmination of our investment of around $8 billion in our mobile network over the five years to 30 June 2019 to enhance the capacity, capability and reach of Telstra’s network.

Technical information

• The 2Gbps speed test on a commercial network was achieved using Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon X24 LTE modem and the NETGEAR Nighthawk® M2 Mobile Router.

Verizon, Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, recently reached peak data speeds of 1.45 gigabits per second (Gbps)

Companies continue legacy of leadership, innovation by completing another US wireless industry first.

NEW YORK, NY - To create the best 5G network it helps to have the best 4G network, and Verizon’s 4G LTE network just keeps getting better, setting the standard for innovation.  Verizon, Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, recently reached peak data speeds of 1.45 gigabits per second (Gbps) on LTE in a live commercial environment using six channel carrier aggregation, a key LTE Advanced technology.

Carrier aggregation combines multiple channels of spectrum to provide greater efficiency for data sessions transmitting over wireless networks.  By using a combination of both licensed and shared spectrum, for the first time in the U.S. in a commercial environment the three companies combined six separate channels of spectrum.

“When we first launched our LTE network, we knew there would be a lot of room for innovation and to expand its capabilities. Eight years later, we continue our advancement of our 4G LTE network knowing our LTE network leadership is foundational for our evolution into 5G,” said Bill Stone, Vice President of Technology Planning and Development for Verizon.

The record-breaking speeds on 4G LTE were reached on Verizon’s network in New York using a combination of Verizon’s licensed PCS and AWS spectrum in conjunction with four carriers of LAA (License Assisted Access) spectrum.  The demonstration used Nokia’s AirScale base station and Qualcomm Technologies’ mobile test device powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon TMX24 LTE modem.

“By using the Nokia AirScale, which is designed for 5G, we have taken an important step on the road to 5G, both in terms of customer data rate experience and network infrastructure,” said Stephen Marino,

Senior Vice President, Verizon Account Team, Nokia.

“Qualcomm Technologies was first to introduce Gigabit LTE and LAA technologies into a commercial modem, and we continue to innovate with our latest Snapdragon X24 LTE modem capable of up to 2Gbps speeds,” said Joe Glynn, Vice President, Business Development, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.  “As we lead the way to 5G and collaborate with industry leaders to make it a commercial reality, it’s important we continue to innovate in LTE as it will be foundational in early 5G network deployments.”

The demonstration in New York also used LTE Advanced feature, 256 QAM (enabling the network to deliver more bits of data in each transmission) and 4x4 MIMO (using multiple antennas at the cell tower and in the device to minimize errors and optimize data speeds.)  In mid-2018, Verizon announced these technologies were available in over 1,100 markets nationwide

 

Snapdragon X24: World’s first announced 2 Gbps LTE modem

Gives glimpse of 5G experience, doubles speed over first generation Gigabit LTE modem, industry’s first-announced 7nm chip

The excitement continues to build as we approach 5G launch in 2019. Qualcomm Technologies aims to put 5G smartphones in your hands by the first half of next year. In anticipation, operators are strengthening the Gigabit LTE foundation on which their future 5G networks will be built.

Gigabit LTE will provide high-speed coverage in areas where 5G signals aren't available and a consistency of experience for users of 5G devices that have Gigabit multimode capability, like those utilizing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem family. Additionally, Gigabit LTE improves network capacity and provides an enhanced mobile experience.

Gigabit LTE continues to gain momentum as more operators and mobile device OEMs jump on board. Today, 45 operators in 26 countries have embraced the technology and 17 commercially available devices are powered by Snapdragon Gigabit LTE modems, making Gigabit LTE a smashing success.

We broke several barriers since Qualcomm Technologies announced its first Gigabit LTE modem in 2016, yet we continue to push the modem performance envelope. Today, Qualcomm Technologies announced its third generation Gigabit LTE solution: The Qualcomm Snapdragon X24 LTE modem. It represents several significant mobile industry firsts:

• The first announced modem to support Category 20 LTE download speeds of up to a blistering 2 Gbps

• The first announced 7nm chip, the most advanced commercially available silicon manufacturing process

• The first announced LTE modem to support downloads on up to 20 independent spatial streams, including 4x4 MIMO on up to 5 aggregated carriers

• The first announced LTE modem to support up to 7x carrier aggregation

Additionally, Snapdragon X24 supports the concurrent multi-constellation, multi-frequency global navigation satellite system (GNSS), which is optimized to provide highly accurate location positioning required in applications such as autonomous driving andV2X.

When can you get your hands on Snapdragon X24? We’ve already begun sampling it to our customers and we expect the first mobile devices powered by the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem to be available by end of 2018.