There’s a good chance 2018’s first Galaxy could arrive with support for Australia’s 5G networks, based on something Samsung has just announced.
Australia is one of the first places in the world to see a fifth-generation mobile network deployed, and while its uses are varied, very little can actually take advantage of the technology at this point.
With no 5G phones and no 5G mobile broadband modems, there isn’t much that can connect to Telstra’s now-deployed 5G network on the Gold Coast, but that might change in the next few months.
Samsung has this week announced that it has built a modem chip that can connect to networks with a maximum download speed of 2 gigabits per second on one of 5G’s connection standards, while 6Gbps can be used on the other.
While that might come across as jargon, it technically means speeds ranging from 250 megabytes per second to 750 megabytes per second are possible, and possibly in a portable device.
Samsung’s chip isn’t the first 5G modem out there, but it could be one that could be rolled out to phones, and given Samsung’s Australian phones almost always see Samsung’s chips, it’s likely the Exynos 5100 5G chip could arrive in an upcoming Samsung phone.
That won’t be the Galaxy Note 9 — that’s out next week — but it could be something else. Samsung’s next phone for the new year will be a Galaxy S-based phone, possibly the Galaxy S10, and while we don’t quite know what it will include, we imagine 5G would be a pretty strong feature to lead 2019 with, especially as that’s the year 5G gets properly switched on.
Or it could skip the next Galaxy S model altogether and make its way into something else.
For now, it’s a chip that can connect to 5G, and with more 5G networks expected to go live next year, it’s exactly what mobile devices need to start.
