Qualcomm’s New Gigabit LTE Modem Snapdragon X20 Promises 1.2Gbps Download Speeds on Mobiles

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Qualcomm has been very active in adopting newer technologies, at least in the mobile space. Today, the company has unveiled its latest Gigabit LTE modem called Snapdragon X20. The Snapdragon X20 will be the Qualcomm’s seventh gen LTE modem and second gen Gigabit modem. It is the successor to X16 LTE modem that was used in the Snapdragon 835 SoC. According to the company, the X20 LTE modem will be able to reach up to 1.2Gbps download speed on mobile devices. It offers slightly higher speed than the X16 LTE modem that can reach up to 1Gbps download speeds. However, the maximum upload speed will be same as on the last gen LTE modem offering up to 150 Mbps.

To achieve top download speeds, we came to know that this new modem will be using the first commercially announced single-chip RF transceiver that can achieve 12 unique data streams each capable of reaching up to 100Mbps. It is built on the advanced 10nm FinFET process which makes the modem small in size. The new X20 modem supporting Cat.18 LTE will be offering downlink speeds of up to 1.2Gbps by aggregating unlicensed FDD and TDD radio frequencies, as well as 4×4 MIMO on up to three aggregated LTE carriers. This will also be the world’s first modem to offer dual SIM dual VoLTE capability for using two VoLTE based SIM at the same time.

The user in the Asian countries can make the best use of the new dual VoLTE SIM support. In India, Jio 4G is completely based on VoLTE and Airtel is said to deploy VoLTE network by the end of next year. While companies started working to bring the 5G network for commercial purpose, in the mean time Qualcomm has been improving the 4G LTE network to its maximum limit. Qualcomm also mentions that the X20 LTE modem will be supporting all the major carrier that offers WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, GSM (EDGE) along with FDD and TDD LTE. A total of 40 cellular frequency bands will be supported by the latest Gigabit modem.

Since the X20 modem supports 3.5GHz shared spectrum which is called as Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) in the U.S, the companies can provide new services like private LTE-based network which will also be more secure. With all these technology advancements, we might see unimaginable speeds once the 5G is widely deployed. As the 30-degree videos and virtual reality services need to huge data, the Gigabit modems will offer the best experience with their high download speeds. The commercial devices using the new Snapdragon X20 LTE modem will be available in the first half of 2018.

At the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) event that will be held from February 27th to March 2nd, we will be seeing the world’s first Gigabit smartphone from ZTE. Though there is no much information, we expect the device to come powered by the latest Snapdragon 835 SoC that includes the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem, the first gen Gigabit modem. Stay tuned on Phone Radar for more updates!

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