With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, Bell Canada will become the first in North America to offer Quad Band LTE Advanced (LTE-A) network speeds.
This means that the Canadian carrier can deliver broadband speeds of up to 750 megabits per second (Mbps) with expected average speeds of 22 to 174 Mbps. The new Quad Band LTE speed is up from what customers experience in current Dual Band LTE speeds that max out at 550 Mbps with an expected average of 18 to 150 Mbps. To get to the news speeds, Bell added 256 QAM technology to its service.
This technology is also known as 4-carrier aggregation that “leverages multiple bands of wireless spectrum to boost top Tri Band LTE-A mobile data speeds”.
The announcement of the new wireless network furthers the partnership the carrier has with Samsung. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ will be the first smartphone devices that Bell carries to take advantage of the increased network capabilities.
In the future, Galaxy S8 software will automatically be upgrades to operate naturally on Bell Quad Band 256 QAM LTE. Both phones will become available at Bell (and other major Canadian carriers) on April 21.
The Quad Band LTE-A wireless network comes less than a year after the company reported that it had successfully demoed 5G network technology through Bell’s partnership with Nokia. According to Bell, 5G speeds could provide sustained broadband data speeds more than six times faster than the current 4G mobile speeds available in Canada.