MT6290 LTE/4G Modem To Be Released Q2!

General Manager of MediaTek Wireless Technology Development Division Zhuangcheng De said: “We are very pleased to be the first LTE solutions on display this year at CES, and look forward to partnering with the global telecommunications market driven by LTE to become mainstream… Existing 3G smart phone solution is fully compatible with our next generation integrated LTE specifications SOCs are also expected to be launched within the year.”

Mohit Bhushan, general manager of technology marketing MediaTek North America, said: “MediaTek has started with all U.S. carriers LTE planning and promotion, and get an enthusiastic response we have started with the telecom operators interoperability testing and certification, will be…”

This last bit by Bohit Bhushan is very interesting. It’s implying that MediaTek has taken a interest in the US LTE market, which means we may very well start to see Americas frequencies supported as a general rule. The possibility here is that MT6290 may be adapted by international name brands which cater to Americans and the MT6290 in these models of course will support American frequencies, but China brands may continue to ignore bands other than what’s used in China.

This may largely depend on how MT6290 is set up. It will be genius if MT6290 comes set up ‘out of the box’ to run on all 30 bands similar to Qualcomm’s RF-360. If it’s the case where individual manufacturer’s pick and choose frequencies to have the chip tuned to, it may very well end up that China brands continue to make phones that aren’t compatible with high-speed data worldwide.

MediaTek has been sending prototype samples worldwide for networking testing and certification, and we should see MT6290 in the market by Q2 2014.