Samsung to launch Galaxy S4 Advanced With Faster LTE, But Most Carriers Aren't Ready

The device will ship internationally, but due to network constrains in the U.S., it won't be coming here for the time being.

Samsung Electronics plans to sell a variation of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone that will transmit data at nearly twice the normal speed, the head of its mobile business said on Monday.

J.K. Shin, also co-chief executive of the world's biggest technology firm by revenue, said the phone would be sold in South Korea as early in June 2013.

Samsung was in talks with several overseas carriers to take the phone, Shin told Reuters in an interview at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, just south of Seoul. He declined to name the carriers.

"We'll be the first with the commercial launch of the advanced 4G version of the smartphone," Shin said.

The new S4 will use LTE-Advanced 4G technology, an upgrade from conventional 4G called LTE, or long term evolution. LTE-Advanced offers data transmission at up to twice the normal 4G speed. The phones will be powered by Qualcomm chips.

A movie download that takes 3 minutes with conventional 4G would take slightly more than 1 minute, Samsung said.

Samsung's shares have lost almost $20 billion since June 7 after analysts cut forecasts for Galaxy S4 sales by as much as 30 percent on industry data that showed the high-end smartphone market was getting saturated.

The same problem is hitting sales of the iPhone 5, made by Samsung rival Apple.

Samsung's market capitalization is still a hefty $195 billion. Its shares closed down 0.2 percent on Monday.

Often referred to as "true 4G" — present LTE doesn't meet the original requirements laid out for a next-generation network — LTE-A has been in development for years and is already live in some parts of Russia. The standard has theoretical peak rates of around 3Gbps download and 1.5Gbps upload, but real-world networks will be far slower. Yota, the Russian carrier that was first to launch LTE-A, markets its network as 300Mbps, and the US rollout is expected to be rated at 150Mbps. In preparation for upcoming carrier upgrades, several manufacturers have already announced LTE-A radios for smartphones. Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcom, and ST-Ericsson all have chips coming this year that are compatible with the next-gen networks. Those chips won't do much good without a network to access, however, and the LTE-A situation in the US is still a little unclear.

AT&T says LTE Advanced will begin rolling out in the second half of this year, and Verizon plans to add LTE-A to its network through a small-cell AWS network soon. T-Mobile claims it's in a good position to upgrade its fledgling LTE network, but has yet to unveil a firm plan to do so, while Sprint's plans for LTE Advanced are even less clear — it's currently mired in a complex web of mergers and acquisitions. It seems unlikely, then, that Samsung will be able to repeat its achievement of launching the S4 on all major US carriers. We've reached out to Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile for more information on their plans for the LTE Advanced edition Galaxy S4, and will update you when we hear back.

Eyes on network business

Having conquered the smartphone market that Apple virtually created with the iconic iPhone in 2007, Samsung is seeking to do the same in the network business with the booming 4G mobile equipment market, challenging bigger rivals such as Ericsson , China's Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Many countries need to upgrade mobile base stations to handle not just 3G but also 4G, or build them from scratch to support 4G connections.

Shin said the network gear market was one of Samsung's fastest growing businesses, mainly thanks to 4G equipment sales which had been rising more than 30 percent a year since 2010.

The new phone would help this part of Samsung's business, he said.

"Such technology leadership will set the pace for the competition and help us become a major player in the network gear market," Shin said.

Samsung has won some 4G network deals from all major South Korean carriers, US Sprint Nextel Corp and Japan's KDDI and Hutchison Whampoa's British unit, but it needs to crack China to close the gap with traditional vendors in the overall gear equipment market.

Shin said there had not been much progress in Samsung's push to penetrate China's 4G equipment market yet, but it was increasing investment in the country.

China's three mobile operators China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom plan to spend a combined 345 billion yuan in 2013 on network upgrades. That includes investment in 4G, which multiplies mobile broadband speeds by up to five times for users of iPhone and Galaxy phones compared with 3G.

Many analysts believe Huawei and ZTE already big suppliers of China Mobile since only 10-15 percent of 3G network contracts went to foreign vendors - will be winners, leaving others to fight for smaller bits of the pie.

Samsung hopes to show Chinese clients that 4G networks with new technology can be built faster and with lower operating costs.