Rumor: Galaxy S II to launch with LTE on AT&T?

Guys at XDA-Developers have discovered some interesting nuggets when they went through files of the new 2.3.4. ROM for international versions of Samsung’s Galaxy S II. They noticed some images are included in the ROM file for the imminent (hopefully, at least) US launch. While that’s no surprise for anyone, what’s truly interesting are some images they have found. They found some images such as stat_sys_data_lte_att_0.png, and stat_sys_data_lte_att_1.png. Those complicate sounding files had what looks like the AT&T’s official LTE logo.

They also had other sets of images reserved for the AT&T’s faux “4G”/HSPA+ logo, which suggests that Samsung and AT&T are planning to release Galaxy S II as a possible quadruple-mode LTE/HSPA+/HSPA/Edge device (Remember that Galaxy S II is already 21 Mbps HSPA+ capable)  That will create a huge confusion when it comes to displaying each networks on the phone, but that’s a discussion for an another day.

Considering that Samsung is using  the CDMA chipset from VIA and its own proprietary LTE chipset for Droid Charge, it’s not hard to see Samsung engineering the Galaxy S II with LTE. Although it will require a careful construction and engineering, Samsung can simply choose to add in its own LTE chipset. Not to mention that Samsung is planning to release the LTE-version of the Galaxy S II in South Korea on September anyway.

AT&T has already announced LTE/HSPA+ modems and hotspots and is planning to deploy LTE to five – Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio – markets this summer, with 15 markets scheduled to get LTE by the end of this year, so LTE Galaxy S II on AT&T is not a far fetching scenario either.

Of course, right now, I think we can all agree on one point: We need ANY kind of Galaxy S II on U.S. right…NOW.

Source and for more information: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1162330

Picture Source: Deadzone.com

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