Samsung, Qualcomm Achieve 1024 QAM Milestone for 5G Networks

Philip Lee -

Seoul, South Korea - Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced a significant milestone in 5G technology by completing tests of 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) for both frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) spectrum bands. 

This industry-first achievement for FDD is expected to help mobile operators increase 5G throughput and improve the spectral efficiency of their networks.

Samsung conducted the tests at its R&D lab in Korea. 

The tests were performed using Samsung's 5G vRAN software, radios, and Qualcomm Technologies' mobile phone form factor test device equipped with the latest Snapdragon® X75 5G modem RF system.

The results showed a downlink speed of 485Mbps at 20MHz bandwidth, an increase of more than 20% over the current 256 QAM technology.

While the companies did not provide a specific timeline for commercial deployment, Samsung plans to complete ongoing testing of 1024 QAM in the traditional RAN and expects the technology to be commercially available later this year.