Qualcomm’s baseband chips and integrated applications processors have long supported all cellular technologies and bands, but they’ve never been able to produce a truely global phone. That’s because the other hardware components of the phone have never supported the same breadth of frequencies. Consequently, LTE devices have always been region-specific. Even Apple had to can its usual of strategy of producing a single global device and design three different variants of the iPhone 5.

Wireless Intelligence projects 38 distinct LTE bands in 2015

But Qualcomm’s new front-end chip, called the RF360, can supposedly support up to 40 LTE bands, both the time division and frequency division variants of LTE and all legacy 3G and 2G technologies to boot. Qualcomm created a 3D chip that utilizes a separate sophisticated antenna tuner that can latch onto any of 40 LTE frequencies between 600 MHz and 2.7 GHz – pretty much the entire range of current 4G spectrum.

This technology will be a key element in creating the future universal LTE phone, but — before you get too excited — it’s not the only necessary element. Other components in the RF chain such as the antenna will need to catch up before a device could feasibly work on every LTE network in the world. Smart antenna makers like SkyCross and Ethertronics have designed antennas that can support a dozen bands or so, but they’re not quite ready for 40.

But Qualcomm EVP and co-president of mobile and computing technologies Murthy Renduchintala said that the RF360 would allow device makers to make far fewer variants of their phones. In order to cover all of the world’s LTE networks, a vendor is faced with the prospect of designing as many as 10 different devices. The capabilities of RF360 could cut that number down to as few as three, he said.

“There will always be more problems to solve,” Renduchintala said an interview with GigaOM. “What we’ve done here is remove one of the most enormous obstacles.”

One of the problems this technology could overcome is the 4G fragmentation problem that’s already emerging in the U.S. All four of major operators are deploying LTE on different frequencies, while the rural and many regional operators are off on their lonesome in a neglected portion of the 700 MHz band. Clearwire isn’t just launching LTE on it’s own 2.5 GHz band, it’s the only U.S. carrier using TD-LTE. Maybe the RF360 can’t yet produce a global 4G phone, but it could produce a universal phone for the U.S. — and maybe ensure that smaller operators aren’t left out of the 4G revolution.

Also, Apple could conceivably use the technology to combine all of its iPhone 5 variants into a single device, but it still wouldn’t have a universal iPhone. Apple’s three iPhone models still leave out a good deal of the world’s current LTE frequencies, and with current technology it couldn’t cram 30 or 40 bands into a single device.

But wait, there’s more! Qualcomm has also introduced its own envelope tracking technology into the module, which will help sate LTE device’s notorious hunger for power. Envelope tracking helps control the enormous energy spikes inherent in LTE, reducing device power consumption by as much as 30 percent. Other silicon vendors like Broadcom and Altair Semiconductor have announced support for envelope tracking in their new super-chips, but support doesn’t necessarily equate inclusion. Qualcomm developed its technology in-house and is embedding envelope trackers directly into its future RF products.

Renduchintala said the module has already begun sampling and is in the hands of phone manufacturers. The first commercial devices with the new capabilities should start appearing in the latter half of the year.

This post was updated at 12:05 PM, Thursday, with new information on the implications of the technology for the iPhone.

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It’s a problem that doesn’t just plague Apple but also every handset vendor looking to support multiple LTE frequencies in addition to the usual complement of 2G and 3G bands. Smart antenna maker SkyCross, however has started shipping a new super antenna that can tune to as many 12 frequencies. Given that there are about 40 identified LTE frequencies, SkyCross’s new VersiTune-LTE antenna won’t produce the universal 4G phone, but it will get handset makers a lot closer, said John Marshall, VP of business development and marketing.

“You could use it, for instance, to create a single phone that could work on every North American LTE networks,” Marshall said. That’s no small feat. North America is the most fragmented region of the all. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and Clearwire are all launching their networks on different frequency bands, and as they start expanding their 4G networks into supplemental spectrum that mishmash of bands is going to become even more complex.

SkyCross is utilizing a design that it has developed called isolated Mode Antenna Technology (iMAT). By accessing different “feedpoints” on the structure, iMAT antennas can not only tune themselves to different frequency, but also can function as multiple antennas that can simultaneously receive different signals. That’s important because increasingly complex LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies require multiple radio links to the network.

To build fatter wireless pipes, operators are using a technique called carrier aggregation, which in essence bonds together two blocks of spectrum in disparate bands. For instance, Verizon plans to glue 2100 MHz frequencies onto its current network, which residing way down in the 700 MHz band. To accomplish that, the phone will have to tap into both bands simultaneously. Marshall said the VersiTune will be the first antenna specifically designed for LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation.

SkyCross plans to officially unveil the new design next week at CES, and the antenna will start making it into phones this year. Ultimately these kind of active antennas could help Apple move back to a single iPhone manufacturing model — or at least minimize the number of different iPhones it must make. Apple, though, isn’t a customer, though Marshall said he’s working on that. SkyCross already works with some of the biggest handset makers in the world, including the dominant Samsung, but it does face competition from other active antenna makers like Ethertronics and WiSpry.

Featured mage courtesy Flickr user Horia Varlan.

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Apple is releasing three different versions of the iPhone to handle the huge number of LTE bands globally. One of them is tuned to the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum over which T-Mobile will launch its LTE network next year. So if you want to buy an iPhone 5 and bring it over to T-Mo in the future, buy the AT&T/Canadian version.

Outside the Apple iPhone 5 event Sept. 12

T-Mobile has long been denied the iPhone – not because of some feud with Apple, but because its mobile broadband frequencies simply didn’t match up with Apple’s universal smartphone. But since this summer, T-Mobile has been playing musical chairs with its spectrum.

T-Mobile has already started moving its HSPA+ network to the PCS band, where it can play nicely with all versions of the iPhone’s 3G radios. So far it’s only a few markets, but T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray has informed us that the carrier will have a “material footprint on HSPA+ at 1900 MHz by the end of the year.” That means all versions of the iPhone will work on T-Mobile’s 3G network over a portion – however big “material” is – in just a few short months.

Once that HSPA+ transition is complete, T-Mobile will begin filling in the gap left in the AWS band with LTE, a project it expects to complete in the second half of the year. At that point, all of T-Mobile’s networks will be in complete alignment with AT&T. That means all generations of iPhones will function on T-Mo’s network just as they would on AT&T’s. T-Mobile’s Ray will share more details about his LTE rollout plan at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference next week in San Francisco.

Of course, that doesn’t mean T-Mobile will become an official iPhone distributor. It still has to broker a deal directly with Apple, which would force T-Mobile to make a big financial commitment. I have little doubt though that T-Mobile will immediately jump at the chance to add the iPhone to its portfolio. The lack of the device has been hitting it hard in recent quarters. To prime the market, T-Mobile has been aggressively encouraging customers with unlocked phones to join its network.

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