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With most carriers set to upgrade their LTE networks to LTE-Advanced at some point in the future, Samsung is thinking ahead and getting its Galaxy S4 units outfitted with radios to take advantage of the next evolution of LTE. Not many will care for now as no carrier has deployed their network upgrades yet, but with the likes of T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and AT&T expected to begin their rollouts of LTE-A as soon as this year it will become increasingly important for OEMs to keep up with the times.
The phone’s first market would look to be South Korea, natch, with beloved Samsung chief JK Shin confirming that talks with the nation’s carriers are ongoing. We could see it launch over in those parts of the world as early as this month.
We’re not sure how long it would take for Samsung to bring the improved device to western and European markets, but we imagine it won’t happen until carrier demand has ramped up (which likely won’t happen until the carriers actually begin their LTE-A rollouts). LTE-Advanced offers data throughput of up to two times faster than current deployments. For some carriers, this means a significant increase in speeds.
For others — like Verizon — it’s going to be more important for increasing volume, which would allow them to provide a more consistent level of service across their deployment map. We’re excited for the future, but for now we’re just going to continue to play the waiting game and hope other OEMs begin to follow suit with their latest handsets.
[via Reuters]
Another S4 variant… HA
S4 Qualcomm
S4 Octa Exynos
S4 Google edition
S4 Zoom
S4 Active
S4 LTE-Advanced
S4 Mini
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More to come!
Not sure about all variants, but the Verizon S4 is already equipped for Next-Gen LTE
I thought I read that already here…
You forgot the Korean S4 that marries both the Exynos Octa + LTE :P.
By the time LTE Advanced gets rolled out to enough places for this to matter this phone will be obsolete.
It will just be called S5 =P
I loved my Samsung Vibrant when it came out. At the time was the best device on T-Mobile hands down. Traded it for an HTC Sensation a year later, which is still my daily driver. In all that time I have seen a new Galaxy phone pop up like clockwork. These things are like the Honda Civic of android. Plastic and boring. Time for a fresh design and no more releasing 38 versions of the same damn phone -_- Its BEEN old.
no matter what samsung does it doesn’t matter why because the samsung s4 and touch wiz is the laggest phone and ui ever made
Nova Launcher :D
except it isn’t. maybe try using one instead of using hyperbole ignorantly.
Natch = Naturally…??? O_o
After a point, speeds are dictated by the amount of backhaul supplied to each cellsite, not how fast the protocol can go. You could have a 3Gbps device but if backhaul is only 100Mbps-1Gbps shared with 100+ other users, its not much better real world result.. True LTE-A (upper versions) will allow for more efficient spectrum management though. It sounds like what Samsung is doing is using more spectrum, not same amount more efficiently.
Smartphones don’t need more than a few Mbps anyway, its the latency that matters more in most cases after a few Mbps.
I wish they would get one service available before they roll out another.. We still don’t have LTE where I live…