Qualcomm's and Intel's Latest LTE Modems for Smartphones Exceed Gigabit Speeds

Ahead of Mobile World Congress next week, Qualcomm and Intel have separately announced the latest LTE modems for smartphones with theoretical download speeds exceeding so-called "Gigabit LTE," aka 1 Gbps. Apple sources LTE modems for iPhones from both chipmakers.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X20
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X20 modem is the first-announced modem to support Category 18 download speeds up to an ultra fast 1.2 Gbps, with Category 13 upload speeds of up to 150 Mbps. That builds upon Qualcomm's Snapdragon X16, which has a peak download speed of 1 Gbps.

Qualcomm said the Snapdragon X20, built on a leading-edge 10nm FinFET process, supports more combinations of LTE carriers and a higher number of total LTE spatial streams. This "vastly expanded flexibility" will for more operators around the world to deploy Gigabit LTE in the future.

Qualcomm said the first products with the Snapdragon X20 modem are expected to be available in the first half of 2018.

Intel's new XMM 7560 modem [PDF] supports LTE Advanced Pro for up to Category 16 download speeds "exceeding" 1 Gbps, and Category 13 upload speeds of up to 225 Mbps. The XMM 7560 modem is Intel's fifth-generation LTE modem, and the first to be manufactured based on its 14nm process.

Intel said the XMM 7560 modem is expected to sample in the first half of this year and move into production soon afterward.

Both modems support 5x carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO configurations, up to 256-QAM, and other technologies. Both chips also work with a number of cellular technologies, covering most LTE, CDMA, and GSM standards, meaning that equipped smartphones will be usable on most networks around the world.

Overall, Qualcomm appears to remain a step ahead of Intel, but it's a rather moot point for now given that Australian carrier Telstra currently has the only Gigabit LTE network in the world. There are also no Gigabit LTE-capable smartphones, although the first ones are expected to be announced at Mobile World Congress next week.

Nevertheless, the broader availability of Gigabit LTE is on the horizon. More smartphones will inevitably support the faster speeds in the future, while AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are all testing or plan to deploy Gigabit LTE this year in the United States, on the bigger path towards next-generation 5G networking.

But even then, it is important to remember these are just theoretical speeds. In the latest OpenSignal testing, based on aggregated data from nearly 170,000 smartphone users, average LTE download speeds at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile ranged between 8 Mbps and 17 Mbps—a far cry from 1 Gbps.

Apple could theoretically include the Snapdragon X20 or Intel XMM 7560 in a future iPhone, thereby making it a Gigabit LTE-capable smartphone, but it may elect to wait until more networks are up to speed.

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X12 or Intel's XMM 7360 depending on the model. The X12 has a theoretical peak download speed of up to 600 Mbps, while the XMM 7360 reaches up to 450 Mbps. Qualcomm models were unsurprisingly found to be faster in subsequent testing.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
Facebook Feature

Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out. That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook. Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

iPhone Foldable Display Said to Feature iPad-Style 4:3 Aspect Ratio

Friday March 28, 2025 3:44 am PDT by
Apple's upcoming "iPhone Fold" will feature a foldable screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, according to a Chinese leaker who previously leaked the book-style device's display dimensions. The Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station claims that Apple will adopt a "roughly" 4:3 aspect ratio on the inner display in order to achieve consistency between the outer display, as well as to ensure parity...

Top Rated Comments

farewelwilliams Avatar
106 months ago
aaaaaaaaaand throttled.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nutmac Avatar
106 months ago
So what? Anything beyond 20 Mbit/s/user is pretty much useless on a mobile device.
Why is that?

I occasionally get around 100 Mbps and it's hugely different from 20-40 Mbps that I typically get.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WestonHarvey1 Avatar
106 months ago
Cool, at that speed I can hit my 22GB soft cap on my "unlimited" plan in less than 3 minutes before I am throttled down to 4G speeds.
The extra speed doesn't suddenly make you download more data than you ordinarily do.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Wowereit Avatar
106 months ago
So what? Anything beyond 20 Mbit/s/user is pretty much useless on a mobile device.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dominiongamma Avatar
106 months ago
So what? Anything beyond 20 Mbit/s/user is pretty much useless on a mobile device.
Sounds like people are trying to justify the speeds they are getting is good enough, I get 70-80 Mbps and it's much faster.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
106 months ago
So what? Anything beyond 20 Mbit/s/user is pretty much useless on a mobile device.
People said the same about Gigabit wireless speeds on laptops. The point is that today's "good enough" doesn't offer anything for tomorrow.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)