Verizon, Ericsson, and Qualcomm have announced a new milestone in Gigabit LTE testing, recording speeds of 1.07 Gbps in recent laboratory trials.
The test achieved these speeds by using 12 simultaneous LTE streams, which can increase peak capacity and data rates by up to 20%. The trial combined Ericsson’s radio system and TLE software with a mobile test device built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X20 LTE modem.
Following Gigabit LTE specifications, the testing used 4×4 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) per carrier — meaning multiple antennas at both the cell site and on the device — along with 256QAM modulation to reach the theoretical 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) throughput.
The participating companies framed the result as a significant technical achievement. Ericsson called the 1.07 Gbps result “a big milestone on the road to 5G.” Verizon said the test demonstrates the company’s commitment to anticipating customers’ future needs. Qualcomm emphasized that higher peak capabilities will enable better average speeds for users and support new and more engaging customer experiences.
Earlier this month, Gigabit LTE also featured in testing by other industry players. Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), ZTE, and China Mobile reported testing that hit 1 Gbps, and those efforts also used Qualcomm’s platform during trials.
It is well understood that laboratory results represent ideal conditions and that users are unlikely to see full 1 Gbps speeds in everyday use. Factors such as signal strength, coverage limitations, and network congestion from other users all reduce achievable speeds in real-world conditions.
Despite those limitations, Verizon, Ericsson, and Qualcomm recently reported a peak speed of 953 Mbps in a dynamic, real-world trial in Boca Raton, Florida. Qualcomm’s technical team has explained the difference between advertised peak speeds and typical real-world results, noting that device capabilities — for example supporting 4×4 MIMO reception and using LTE over 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum — influence practical performance.
“The only way to get the fastest speeds is for your phone to mimic the capabilities of the network,” wrote Sherif Hanna, technical marketing staff manager at Qualcomm. “In every scenario shown, Snapdragon Gigabit LTE devices are capable of achieving the fastest LTE peak speeds because they have a superset of the required features being deployed in networks this year, and over the course of the next few years.”
Hanna also argued that dismissing peak theoretical speeds as irrelevant to the real world is misguided. In Qualcomm’s network simulation tests, median Cat 16 (Gigabit LTE) devices delivered roughly double the download throughput of comparable median Cat 9 devices — about 93 Mbps versus 47 Mbps on average — with peak speeds of 1 Gbps and 450 Mbps respectively.
While lab and controlled-field trials are not direct predictors of everyday user experience, they show the potential gains from advances in modem capabilities, multi-antenna techniques, and higher-order modulation. As device and network support for these technologies expands, users should see improved average speeds and more consistent performance, even if absolute laboratory peaks remain uncommon outside test environments.