Galaxy S9 can hit speeds of over 500Mbps on AT&T's LTE network

Last updated: March 30th, 2018 at 12:39 UTC+01:00

The Milky way S8 was one of the first smartphones on the market final year capable of hitting gigabit LTE speeds. A test conducted past T-Moile revealed that the handset could attain download speeds of over 900Mbps. Still, the test was conducted in a lab and it was incommunicable for the boilerplate user to achieve speeds anywhere near that in real-world atmospheric condition.

As one can imagine, the Galaxy S9 has a gigabit LTE modem besides which means it can hitting some enviable speeds. Some carriers are at present using 5GHz unlicensed spectrum which is commonly known every bit the Wi-Fi spectrum equally part of their LTE networks. This lets them significantly meliorate speeds for public LTE networks ahead of the commercial roll-out of 5G. This is what's chosen Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) and AT&T'southward new LAA network enables the Galaxy S9 to hit peak speeds of over 500Mbps on LTE.

Some Samsung devices can access AT&T's LAA network

The folks over at PCMag tested several AT&T LAA sites in downtown Chicago using a regular retail Galaxy S9. They were able to accomplish these speeds out on the street on a public network and not at a test site. AT&T is far from the but carrier that'due south doing this. T-Mobile and Verizon are also installing Licensed Assisted Access sites in major cities across the country.

That being said, it's important to keep in mind that LAA is an urban solution because the spectrum tin can't travel far. Yous won't probable exist able to hit such speeds in the comfort of your own home. The iv sites tested by the scribe had radiuses between 150 anxiety to 400 feet then you'll likely have to stay outdoors for extended periods of fourth dimension if y'all want to accept advantage of super-loftier LTE speeds. AT&T is rolling out its LAA sites in several cities across the U.s. including San Francisco and Los Angeles. It plans to launch LAA in at least 24 cities this yr.

The four different sites returned different speed results depending on the level of congestion of the site itself and also of the surrounding sites. The speeds were always above 250Mbps at all iv sites and managed to hit 537Mbps at the third site. Despite considerably improving downloads, LAA doesn't exercise the same for uploads which continue to run on the defended LTE spectrum with speeds of up to 43Mbps.

AT&T subscribers tin can access the LAA fast lanes provided that they take a compatible device. The Milky way S8, Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy Note 8 are the only Samsung devices that back up LAA correct now.