Qualcomm determined to solve 4G LTE roaming in 2013

4G LTE is the fastest commercially available wireless data standard, but as travelers will attest, fragmentation between the world's more than LTE-supported 40 frequencies means that it's not universal in the U.S. and Europe.

Qualcomm, the third-largest semiconductor producer in the world, is looking to put an end to all of this 4G LTE roaming, which bumps travelers down to 3G, and it wants to begin solving the problem as early as this year.

"LTE is the first technology to be capable of being present in all the different regions worldwide," said Qualcomm Vice President of Product Marketing and Business Development Roberto Di Pietro to CNET.

"The issue is that the spectrum is completely different in different regions. Band support is one of the major issues we are working on."

RF360 to turn things around

Qualcomm's solution is its RF360 Front End Solution chipset, which is a single, global 4G LTE design for mobile devices.

"Currently there are around 40 different frequencies on which LTE is available," said Di Pietro.

"Our chipset supports around 40 different bandwidths. It is a step forward for the LTE global roaming scenario where you can roam with a single device in different regions."

Qualcomm hopes to mitigate the 4G LTE fragmentation problem while improving radio frequency performance.

The company also wants to help OEMs develop multiband, multimode devices that support all seven cellular modes: LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, WCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE.

4G LTE carriers still an issue

Qualcomm's global chipset with LTE carrier aggregation would make 4G phones compatible throughout the U.S. and Europe, however carrier compatibility would still be an issue.

Networks haven't laid out their plans for roaming agreements over 4G when customers travel abroad, notes CNET, so using an existing number and contract wouldn't be feasible even with a global 4G LTE phone.

Popping in a foreign SIM card, however, would be possible once Qualcomm's RF360 chipset makes it to market in the second half of 2013.