Qualcomm's newly released Gobi 9x45, the first mobile modem with Category 9 or Category 10 LTE capability that support speeds up to 450Mbps has sparked lots of interest among users and service providers. The Category 10 modems will support at least 3 downlink (3DL) LTE Carrier Aggregation (CA) of up to 3x20 MHz across various LTE bands and modes.
According to ABI Research, smartphones supporting these new specs to enable speeds of 450Mbps are unlikely to hit the market before 3Q 2015 at the earliest, but will reach 64 million in 2019. These devices are not expected to be widely available in the marketplace before the end of 2016, said ABI. ABI also noted that Korean and Chinese operators are likely to be the first to launch 3DL LTE CA networks enabling speeds up to 450 Mbps.
Malik Saadi, a Practice Director at ABI Research
During the same period last year, Qualcomm unveiled its Gobi 9x35 chip, a Category 6 modem with download speeds of up to 300 Mbps. To date, this chip has only been embedded to selected versions of some commercially available smartphones targeted at the Korean market. North American consumers are unlikely to enjoy broadband speeds exceeding 300 Mbps anytime in the near future, meaning that there are no immediate incentives for operators in this region to deploy devices with Category 10 modems unless they are offered at a similar price of those supporting Category 6.
