The world's first commercial Gigabit LTE network and terminal launched

Qualcomm, Telstra, Ericsson and NETGEAR recently announced the launch of the world's first commercial Gigabit LTE network and terminals, and held a Gigabit LTE network experience event at the Telstra Experience Center in Sydney, Australia. The newly launched Gigabit LTE network can bring a downlink rate of up to 1Gbps and an uplink rate of up to 150Mbps. In addition, as the world's first Gigabit LTE terminal, the NETGEAR Nighthawk M1 mobile router uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem, which supports a downlink rate of up to 1Gbps and an uplink rate of 150Mbps.

Data shows that the downlink rate of Gigabit LTE has reached 10 times that of the first-generation LTE terminals, and even more than 500 times that of early 3G terminals. The launch of Gigabit LTE will provide consumers with a "fiber-like" wireless connection experience and become an important milestone on the road to 5G in the industry. It is reported that 15 operators around the world are planning to launch or have already tested Gigabit LTE networks.

“We are pleased to be working closely with Telstra, NETGEAR and Ericsson to support the launch of the world’s first commercial Gigabit devices,” said Mike Finley, senior vice president and president, North America and Australia, Qualcomm. “The Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem is the world’s first commercial modem that enables revolutionary connection speeds and user experiences.”

The on-site experience activities were based on Telstra's Gigabit LTE network and terminals such as NETGEAR Gigabit mobile routers equipped with X16 LTE modems, demonstrating new types of mobile applications and experiences, including immersive virtual reality (VR), near-real-time networked cloud storage, and rich multimedia entertainment experiences. Gigabit LTE transmission speeds are achieved by utilizing the industry's most advanced connection technologies such as three-carrier aggregation (CA), 4x4 MIMO, and 256-QAM. The industry generally believes that Gigabit LTE will benefit the entire wireless industry in many ways, including more efficient use of spectrum resources, providing users with better throughput capabilities, and bringing new types of service opportunities. Telstra said that Gigabit LTE services have been launched in some areas such as Sydney CBD, and will be deployed in more areas of Australia in the future.

It is understood that the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem that supports Gigabit LTE transmission rates has been integrated into Qualcomm's latest flagship mobile platform, the Snapdragon 835 processor.