Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus will support Gigabit Class 4G LTE, BusinessKorea reported Tuesday, citing industry sources with knowledge of the matter. The company’s upcoming flagship series is hence expected to offer a networking performance improvement amounting to approximately ten-percent compared to the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus which allow for peak download speeds of approximately 900Mbps. Insiders are primarily attributing the boost to the second-generation 10nm FinFET chips set to power Samsung’s next pair of ultra-premium devices, with the Seoul-based tech giant already confirming the Exynos 9810 will support 6x carrier aggregation as opposed to the previous Exynos 8895 which was compatible with a 5x variety of the same solution. The functionality that’s enabled by the chip’s Cat.18 LTE modem can theoretically allow for download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps and upload speeds amounting to a maximum of 200Mbps.
While the Galaxy S9 is unlikely to be able to reach its peaks in practice for a prolonged period of time, it shouldn’t have any issues with consistently offering Gigabit Class LTE on compatible networks, some industry sources believe. The actual number of such networks is currently extremely small and all infrastructure that supports 6x carrier aggregation remains experimental in nature, though a first standardized take on the technology is expected to debut at some point this year, presumably in either the United States, South Korea, or both. The Galaxy S9 lineup will also support 4×4 MIMO, being able to take maximum advantage of contemporary macrocells, sources claim.
Networking capabilities are expected to soon be advertised as one of the main selling points of modern flagships, especially once 4.5G and 5G technologies start being commercialized. Sprint already hinted that Samsung will be the first original equipment manufacturer to offer 5G-ready smartphones in early 2019 in the U.S., presumably launching them in the form of the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus. The stateside and Chinese variants of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 are also expected to support Gigabit Class 4G LTE and boast similar networking performance. The Android-powered flagships are set to be launched on February 25.