Qualcomm further reduces 5G phones with new antenna modules | News and opinions

Qualcomm's new modules make Samsung's and LG's flagship Android 5G handsets more likely for AT & T and Verizon at the beginning of next year.

With a large number of 5G flagship phones expected in the first half of next year, the components needed for their operation will improve quickly. Just months after announcing the first antenna modules that can integrate into an AT & T and Verizon 5G phone, Qualcomm announced today new modules, 25% more small and able to support the networks of both operators in the same device.

While T-Mobile and Sprint use 5G technology on existing cellular bands, AT & T and Verizon rely on the very high-speed millimeter wave spectrum, which will require multiple antennas on each phone. We saw the first modules with these antennas in July. They are already quite small – less than the length from the tip of your finger to the first joint – so they are even smaller.

AT & T and Verizon also use different frequency bands: Verizon is at 28 GHz and AT & T at 39 GHz. Last month at Mobile World Congress Americas, AT & T CEO Gordon Mansfield warned us that the first 5G series of devices may not be able to handle both bands, which would essentially make them locked by a only operator.

The new, smaller module "is designed to enable mobile device manufacturers to meet the stringent requirements for mobile handset size," Qualcomm said in a press release. In other words, this allows companies to manufacture relatively small 5G NR phones.

Qualcomm's new module press release promises support for AT & T, Verizon and Europe's millimeter-wave configurations. Qualcomm's marketing director, Bassil Elkadi, said in an email that "there are SKUs that support both 28 and 39 (which will allow the same device to use both 28/39), "which means that devices built with the new module could work with both AT & T and Verizon, if the manufacturers this way.

In any case, this module really helps to launch what will surely be a big 2019 for 5G smartphone launches. At Mobile World Congress Shanghai, OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau, has already explained to us that he's been working on a 5G phone since the beginning of next year, increasing the odds that the Samsung Galaxy S10 or the LG G8 also features 5G technology. We could hear about these phones at the MWC 2019 at the end of February.