
The popular chip maker, Qualcomm, has announced that they’ll be making a CPU compatible with multiple 700 MHz frequencies.
Furthermore, as shown above, carriers holding Lower A Block or other 700 MHz spectrum have many different band combinations to choose from to meet their customers’ interoperability needs, both within the 700 MHz band and between any of the long list of other 4G bands. A Band 12/17 combination is merely one such combination, and it would be inappropriate for the FCC to mandate that carriers must make this one combination available on every consumer device.
Because of the difficult interference challenges described herein, the fact that existing technology does not offer a solution to these challenges, and Qualcomm’s ongoing innovation and collaboration with all carriers and manufacturers, the commission should not require mobile equipment to be capable of operating over all paired commercial spectrum blocks in the Lower 700 MHz band.
So what does this mean? It means the company is single-handedly assisting in solving the interoperability problem which LTE operators present in the US. The new design, also dubbed the MSM8960, will support 7 LTE frequencies in total utilizing the 28nm process. Qualcomm is seriously fixated on providing lower power consumption and we thing they truly have the means to do it. According to the company, radios will be shipping to to vendors in July and devices housing them should show up by year’s end. Furthermore, Qualcomm states it’s against an FCC mandate for LTE interoperability and wants the government to allow the free market to make the choice of which bands get paired. This will certainly be an interesting story to follow so stay tuned. And feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
source: FierceWireless