Your future smartphones could be incredibly fast even without 5G.
That's the promise of Qualcomm's latest LTE chip: the Snapdragon X24, which the company says is capable of hitting fast download speeds of up to 2 gigabits per second.
The company's top speed, however, is more of a best-case scenario than a guarantee. There are many other factors that determine network speeds other than the modem.
Still, there's a good reason to be at least cautiously optimistic about Qualcomm's latest milestone: if nothing else, it's a very good sign for the future of 5G.
At this point, you might be wondering why a company that's aiming for 5G is still investing in LTE chips. But it turns out that LTE upgrades are a major part of the upcoming 5G.
Just last week, Qualcomm announced that it is scheduled to bring the first 5G phones to market in 2019, thanks to a series of new partnerships with HTC, LG, and other phone makers. However, while the first 5G networks are reportedly ready in 2019, the reality is that it will take much longer for 5G to be widely available and supported.
Even Qualcomm admits that the first 5G networks will likely have some issues, just like the first LTE and 3G networks. Because of that, the first two generations of 5G phones will still rely, at least in part, on LTE connections (just as phones now occasionally switch to 3G when conditions are bad).
But given that 5G speeds will be so much faster than we're used to — even 1gbps is 51 times faster than the average speed of the fastest LTE network in the United States — the drop could be even more pronounced.
And that's where the X24 comes in. If it's able to support both 5G and ultra-fast LTE connections, devices will be able to more seamlessly swap between 5G and LTE, as speeds will – hopefully – be more comparable.
Of course, over time carriers will improve their infrastructure and phone manufacturers will improve their hardware, making these kinds of emancipations less and less necessary over time. But that transition is likely to take much longer than a year or two. In the meantime, upgrading to LTE may be the next best option.
