The new Samsung Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A, available in South Korea, features, for the first time, our most powerful processor yet: a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805 processor, which features a whole slew of performance increases, additional functionalities, and so on.
But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about the Qualcomm® Gobi™ 9x35 modem, which provides mobile connectivity, the most crucial, yet often overlooked aspect of any mobile phone. As its name suggests, the Samsung Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A supports the latest iteration of LTE: LTE Advanced Category 6.
Let’s take a step back. Not all LTE is created equal. To answer the future demands of networks, LTE Advanced (LTE-A) was created. LTE-A is capable of faster data speeds, enhanced antenna techniques and other improvements. The end result is an LTE standard that offers support for more users and offers faster data speeds. LTE Advanced Category 6, the latest iteration, is based on broadband carrier aggregation.
So, the Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A—while not only supporting Qualcomm Technologies’ most advanced processor yet—supports the world’s most advanced carrier aggregation technology. Essentially, a device with Category 6 carrier aggregation will look at the swath of available spectrum (or carriers), and pull together two of those disparate bands into a single, much wider (up to 40 MHz) and faster connection.
The technology isn’t entirely novel, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was the first commercial device to support carrier aggregation—albeit an older version known as Cat 4, which can combine only up to 20 MHz of spectrum. Theoretically speaking, the Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A is capable of download speeds of up to 300 Mbps, whereas the S4 tips the scale at 150 Mbps.
Those are both pretty large numbers, so let’s put things into perspective.
Snapdragon-powered devices are some of the most powerful, feature-rich devices in the world. And now equipped with the LTE-A Cat6 Gobi 9x35 modem, Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A is one of the fastest mobile devices in every sense of the word.
