MediaTek T800 and T830 5G Modems for Extreme Speeds

Along with the Dimensity 9200 SoC, MediaTek has released the MediaTek T800 5G Modem that accompanies the Dimensity 9200. It is slated to be utilized beyond the smartphone market and may find itself in future industrial, IoT, Laptops, and machine-to-machine applications

The T800 5G modem is designed to reach peak speeds of 7.9Gbps and 4.2Gbps (download/uploads). The upload speed is the best we’ve seen, and content creators can be assured that companies like MediaTek care about uploads as much as downloads.

It would be hard to reach these theoretical speeds in the real world, even in ideal conditions. Still, it also has to do with the quantity and quality of the 5G deployment and how radio-friendly the environment is. That said, for places for line-of-sight from the phone to the cell tower for everyone, like a stadium, speeds, and overall bandwidth could be surprisingly high on a per-user basis.

The improved 5G mmWave support drives the extreme speeds, but the T800 5G modem can handle sub-6Ghz bands as well for the broadest possible network coverage.

5G is also becoming a very attractive solution for private and local networks because of its higher security and enterprise-grade configuration options. Chances are that newer high-speed, low-latency industrial networks will utilize 5G for replacing their wired equivalent, which was difficult to deploy, let alone reconfigure if needed.

MediaTek touted the power efficiency of its T800 modem derived from its 5G UltraSave technology. The company says the energy usage can be reduced so drastically that it would make the T800 suitable for IoT (Internet of Things) devices that typically have small batteries. We need more visibility to vouch for it, but it is an exciting prospect, and we should see such products appear if things happen as MediaTek expects.

Some observers claim that WiFi will eventually merge into 5G, but that’s false. The technologies overlap more, but fundamental aspects of how bands are allocated and managed differ. Security is also much more drastic on mobile networks.

On the other hand, WiFi benefits from being a local deployment, hopefully at the end of a fiber network. These differences make WiFi a more cost-effective solution in many instances. What’s important is not that we have “one ultimate network” but that our devices can switch to the best network available in real-time.

 

There’s also the MediaTek T830 5G modem aimed at the fast-growing Home Internet market. T-Mobile and others are seeing rapid growth in this segment because some cities can deploy 5G more efficiently than cable or Fiber. Even when Cable Internet is available, wireless carriers can offer better deals, thanks to a more data-efficient infrastructure. This advantage will increase over time.

Home Internet boxes built around the T830 will feature some of the finest 5G and WiFi technologies (check MediaTek’s Filogic WiFi 7 products). Their performance will easily outpace the network capabilities for the foreseeable future, making them a sound investment for the next 3-5 years.

Each box can handle a theoretical 7 Gbps peak download speed, and I’d be surprised if wireless carriers could deliver that at scale. We’re delighted with a 1Gbps connection at the office; even 200Mbps symmetrical already feels very nice.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Cellphones, Home
Tags: 5G, MediaTek, modem