What does Gigabit LTE mean for business?

Gigabit LTE takes mobile connectivity to a whole new level of speed, delivering a killer combination of ultra-low latency and peak upload/download speeds of up to 150Mbits/sec and 1.0Gbits/sec. Pack a mobile based on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile Platform, like the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, and applications that once needed high-speed wired connectivity now work anywhere with a Gigabit LTE signal. In fact, there’s a compelling argument that Gigabit LTE could mean the end of wired broadband for some users. After all, why pay for a fibre connection when you can have real world speeds of up to 750Mbits/sec, or potentially more, through your mobile device?

The consumer applications are obvious; streaming 4K video, mobile VR, cloud-based games and applications. Yet Gigabit LTE can do just as much for business. To show you how, we’ll look at Gigabit LTE from the point of view of three different sizes of company, and explain how a new generation of mobile networks could help cut costs, boost productivity and enable the business to grow and change.

The Lean Startup

Running on a minimal budget with little or no office space, Gigabit LTE enables small startups to work effectively without any upfront investment in broadband connectivity or network infrastructure. If you’re effectively running from a virtual office, there’s no need to have a physical network at all.

Gigabit LTE has more than enough bandwidth for unified communications, videoconferencing and the most demanding data-intensive applications. Better still, the combination of high speeds and ultra-low latency makes Gigabit LTE the ideal platform for the cloud-based applications that allow small startups to build their business and scale. Productivity, Accounts, Business Intelligence and CRM applications work seamlessly, whether you’re on the road, working from home or meeting with a client or customer. There’s also even more potential for companies building their own industry-specific mobile apps.

Put it all together, and Gigabit LTE helps lean startups play to their strengths. With great connectivity everywhere they go, founders and workers can move and respond faster than larger, more established businesses, and take advantage of their innate mobility to go out and compete for business. And as the business grows, the combination of Gigabit LTE connectivity and cloud-based applications makes it quicker and easier to scale. Maximum speed, zero costs, no compromises – startups shouldn’t want it any other way.

The Growing SMB

Growing SMBs might have established connectivity and network infrastructure, but Gigabit LTE can still be a game-changer for them. It empowers companies to become both more mobile and more agile, so that sales or field support teams can work more effectively when away from the office, maximising productivity and minimising dead time. With real-world download speeds of up to 750Mbit/sec and upload speeds of over 100Mbit/sec, it no longer matters whether you’re on the office network or connecting remotely over a VPN; application performance is more likely to be affected by your internal infrastructure than by the speed of your mobile connection.

Teams can make full use of cloud-based applications even when they’re not in range of Wi-Fi, and get the critical business information and intelligence they need on the road, with the kind of instant, responsive, wait-free experience that helps them move quickly and decisively. Gigabit LTE also aids communication and collaboration. Voice and video chat or real-time collaboration tools work seamlessly, bringing teams together regardless of their physical proximity.

Gigabit LTE also supports business continuity. If the in-house network fails or the office is hit by fire or flood, it won’t affect those workers on mobile devices connected via Gigabit LTE. They can work, communicate and be productive from anywhere. As far as customers or partners are concerned, it’s business as usual. In a landscape where disruption can make all the difference for a growing company, this could make all the difference.

The Larger Enterprise

Business continuity matters to large enterprises too, with Gigabit LTE delivering what’s effectively a location agnostic, failover network that keeps the company operating even if the corporate network drops out. It also supports the flexible workforce strategies many larger organisations are now adopting – a recent survey for Aviva found that 64% of UK businesses now offered flexible working, with improved happiness, a positive impact on family responsibilities, increased productivity and increased loyalty the major benefits. With Gigabit LTE providing high-speed connectivity at any time, in any place to powerful mobile devices, employees have the freedom to work wherever they need to, without losing the full power of their business applications.

As with the other business sizes, Gigabit LTE is an enhancer for agility. Many larger enterprises have mobile sales teams, consultants, support teams and logistics teams, all of whom can use mobile devices with Gigabit LTE connectivity to get information faster and make decisions more effectively. This goes double for companies investing in data-driven business intelligence and cognitive computing strategies, where the ability to access and query substantial datasets could be critical. Gigabit LTE could really help larger businesses deliver a better customer experience and more powerful line-of-business mobile apps.

Perhaps most importantly, Gigabit LTE enables larger corporations to adopt cutting-edge mobile applications. If you want to use video conferencing and real-time collaboration tools to bring your teams together, Gigabit LTE supports it across a wide range of devices. If you want to bring in augmented reality and virtual reality applications for training, visualisation or field support work, Gigabit LTE can handle the large amounts of data that involves. What’s more, as Gigabit LTE lays down much of the groundwork for future 5G mobile networks, it’s a technology with a future and a clear, predictable upgrade path.

Gigabit LTE isn’t just a nice speed boost for business, but the start of something revolutionary. The new generation of mobile connectivity could drive increased mobility, flexibility and agility, while enabling a new range of business-changing applications. The effects could be transformative.

Find out how Qualcomm is driving the Gigabit LTE revolution.