Samsung’s LTE enabled variant of the Galaxy S II, which also comes with a slightly faster processor (1.5 GHz vs. 1.2 GHz) and larger screen (4.5 inches versus 4.3 inches), was announced a little over a week ago, but the South Korean handset vendor failed to disclose how much it’ll cost and when it’ll actually come out. Seeing as how Rogers Canada recently announced that they’re going to start selling the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE this fall, one would think that other territories are going to get this powerhouse of a device during roughly the same time frame. According to UnwiredView however, that isn’t going to be the case. They say that representatives from T-Mobile told them the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE isn’t going to launch in Europe until the end of Q2 2012. The reason? T-Mobile, and every other operator in Europe with an LTE network, still hasn’t deployed the necessary equipment to handle voice and SMS over LTE. If you’re wondering how come Verizon Wireless has been selling LTE enabled smartphones for over half a year now, it’s because their devices simultaneously connect to Verizon’s 3G and 4G network, the former handling voice and SMS, the latter being used exclusively for data; and now you know why the battery life is so terrible.
If Rogers does indeed launch the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE this fall, then we’re wondering just how exactly they’re going to set it up so it can also act as a phone? Think they’re actually asking Samsung to write a custom firmware that will enable the simultaneous use of two radios, one to connect to 4G, the other to connect to 3G/2G, just so they can be the first out of the gate with an LTE smartphone in Canada?
Whatever the case maybe, we can’t say we’re surprised. After speaking to Louis Tannyeres, Chief Chip Architect at ST-Ericsson, our expectations for LTE enabled smartphones in territories outside North America were set to mid 2012, and this bit of news just confirms that.