Samsung has collaborated with Qualcomm to demonstrate LTE Category 6 connectivity at the Mobile World Congress. The device used to showcase the connectivity was a Galaxy Note 3 that was modified to run the Snapdragon 805, which features a fifth-generation Gobi 9×35 series LTE modem. This modem uses LTE Category 6, which has double the bandwidth of LTE Category 4 that is being pushed out to mainstream devices now. On LTE Cat6, you would be able to download at 300 Mbit/sec. The Galaxy Note 3 unit that Qualcomm was demoing was able to attain this speed consistently. LTE Category 6 works by using a technique called carrier aggregation, wherein the modem combines two 20 MHz signals to offer twice the amount of bandwidth.
Qualcomm announced that commercial availability of this hardware would begin later this year, with the most likely contender being the Galaxy Note 3. Samsung has already created the groundwork for the device by modifying its innards to work with Qualcomm’s latest, so it shouldn’t be all that difficult to bring out a commercial variant. The device will likely be initially offered on South Korea’s SK Telecom.
