Cellular Insights
Telstra’s Gigabit Class LTE Network, a work of art
We just came back from Sydney, Australia where we had the opportunity to experience the world’s first Gigabit Class LTE network operated by Telstra, using the world’s first commercially available Gigabit Class LTE device, Netgear® Nighthawk M1 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon™ X16 LTE modem. As we are still in the process of analyzing the collected data, this brief overview should offer our initial impressions. The vast majority of outdoor tests were conducted on March 14th & 15th and included visits to iconic locations throughout Sydney’s Central Business District (CBD). On March 16th stormy weather limited […]
Sprint’s Gigabit Class LTE network goes live in New Orleans
On Wednesday night at an event held at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Sprint showed off commercial readiness of their Gigabit Class LTE network, achieving peak speeds in excess of 700Mbps in a live network. Nokia provided the infrastructure including Nokia Flexi basestations installed throughout the basketball arena, permanently adding coverage and capacity. Motorola supplied pre-commercial Category 16 LTE handsets powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, with integrated Gigabit Class X16 LTE modem. The yet to be released device supported 256QAM Modulation, and included a quad antenna design for 4×4 MIMO operation on Sprint’s 2.5GHz network. Sprint has […]
Pixel XL, four months later
The Google Pixel has been one of the most celebrated smartphones of 2016. Four months after launch, Google’s latest flagship is still considered to be one of the best smartphones available on the market. For the past several months, we have been carrying the Google Pixel XL as one of our daily drivers, testing all four major operators, and collecting vast amounts of data. In addition to field testing, we have done extensive lab testing utilizing state of the art Rohde & Schwarz CMWflexx setup for Over-the-Air (OTA) RF measurements. Google ships two Pixel variants […]
Samsung Galaxy S7, the first 4×4 MIMO smartphone
Samsung’s six month old flagship, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, has just become a first of it’s kind LTE smartphone. T-Mobile users recently received the September Over-The-Air (OTA) update which appeared to be a routine security patch with some enhancements to Samsung Cloud backup, but it included a hidden gem. The OTA update also included a baseband firmware (G935TUVU4APIA) update which enables 4-Way Receive Diversity, as well as the ability to process four independent spatial streams, 4×4 MIMO. This milestone carries a significant weight in the world of mobile telephony and crowns the Samsung Galaxy S7 as the first commercially available 4×4 […]
LG V20, The First AWS-3 Capable Smartphone
Earlier than expected and without the fanfare, the first AWS-3 capable smartphone has finally arrived. During the obligatory visit to the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, the filing reveals that the LG V20, powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 supports Band 66. In addition, the FCC application confirms the Three-Way Downlink Carrier Aggregation support, and we are hoping to see Over-the-Air update enabling Higher Order Modulation at least on the T-Mobile variant. T-Mobile is the only U.S. mobile operator with DL 256 QAM and UL 64 QAM commercially deployed across the macro layer, and our early tests […]
Making Sense of Sprint’s Announcement of 3-Way Carrier Aggregation on LG G5
There seems to be quite a bit of confusion around advanced LTE capabilities of many popular commercial smartphones. Many smartphones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810/808 with X10 modem, or Snapdragon 820 with X12 modem, paired with Qualcomm’s WTR3925 transceiver. This combo enables a multitude of advanced LTE features, but it’s ultimately up to the phone manufacturers to deliver the full network capability to their products. The X12 modem found in the Snapdragon 820 powered devices is capable of achieving speeds of up to 600Mbps on the downlink (Cat 12), and 150Mbps on the uplink (Cat 13). […]
State of LTE Advanced
In the fast paced world of technology, we just may be in the midst of a summer to remember with the complete hysteria over Pokémon Go, and the growing use of Facebook Live streaming. What will be interesting to watch on the wireless front is if the cellular networks are ready for another inevitable signaling storm, and a spike in mobile data consumption. As we approach this year’s mid mark, let’s review the current state of LTE in our home market of New York City, addressing existing conditions and both challenges and opportunities to come. In our previous article […]
5G, The Long Road Ahead
Over the past year or so, 5G has become a hot topic of discussion in telecom industry, with several operators rushing to make premature announcements. But in reality 5G hasn’t been defined, and commercial user equipment is not expected to hit the market until at least 2020. Initially, Verizon had a rather optimistic 2016-2017 timeline for their 5G commercial product, but quickly reverted to a more relaxed projection involving a fixed broadband solution targeted for 2018. Why all the hype then? Well for one, competition in the wireless industry has never been more fierce, and any perception of technological competitive advantage could be used for […]
Welcome to Cellular Insights!
In our hyper-connected world, smartphones have taken center stage. Obsession with bigger screens, faster processors with more cores, and better cameras with higher megapixel count is reaching a new all time high. At the same time, mainstream tech blogs are increasingly struggling to differentiate from the rest, while the smartphone market is becoming extremely saturated. But rather than bombarding you with redundant smartphone unboxing videos, camera performance reviews, subjective opinions on design and user interface, we will evaluate the modem, antenna, and front end performance of popular smartphones. Our goal is to bring this essential and long forgotten topic to the forefront, […]