Electronics giant Samsung announced today that they will be releasing a variant of their highly-successful Galaxy S4 – but the new model will feature LTE-Advanced. That would make the Galaxy S4 model the only LTE-Advanced model commercially available to date.
“We’ll be the first with the commercial launch of the advanced 4G version of the smartphone. S4 sales remain strong. It’s selling far stronger than the (Galaxy) S III … and the new LTE-Advanced (4G) phone will be another addition to our high-end segment offerings that ensure healthy profit margins,” said J.K. Shin, Samsung’s co-chief executive.
Shin added that mobile operators are moving towards more data, and consumers are consuming data at a faster rate.
“As operators seek to provide more data-centric mobile services, I think this will become mainstream 4G technology globally in the coming years. Such technology leadership will set the pace for the competition and help us become a major player in the network gear market,” he said.
According to Qualcomm, “LTE Advanced is the next major milestone in the evolution of LTE. It incorporates many dimensions of enhancements including the aggregation of multiple radio channels (carriers), advanced antenna techniques and others.”
During recent trials, it was found that LTE-Advanced was twice the speed of current LTE, and will be able to transmit data at a download speed of about 223Mbps.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
