iPhone 5S or iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S4 will feature 5G Wi-Fi

Next-generation flagships, including the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple’s next iPhone could be equipped with 5G speed connectivity chips for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, according to an analyst.

Patrick Wang, an analyst for Evercore Partners, believes a 5G chip from manufacturer Broadcom will be used in some of the biggest devices to be announced this year.

‘We conducted a series of checks that indicate BRCM’s [Broadcom] combo chip (likely 4335, with 5G WiFi, BT, FM) remains designed into Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy S4 – across most if not all SKUs,’ he said.

Wang added that ‘it makes sense that Samsung would seek a best in class solution.’

The report also stated that Apple would ‘use BRCM’s 43342 combo chip (a/b/g/n, BT, FM) on the iPhone 5S with a ramp starting mid-2013.’

Mention was also made of Apple’s rumoured budget model: ‘We also expect the LC [low-cost] iPhone SKUs (launching 3Q) to continue using BRCM as well,’ said Wang.

There’s no way of verifying the validity of these claims, though a progressive bump-up in connectivity speeds does seem logical. That said, analysts do sometimes seem to get a bit carried away with tech hardware predictions and the reality is often a slower rate of change.

We’d certainly be interested to see faster Wi-Fi connectivity on phones to keep step with 4G LTE mobile data connections, although, as always, the effective speed will be as much based on the quality of the network you’re connecting to.

A while ago, we published a feature on the future of Wi-Fi. Industry figures told us that UK networks are currently involved in a ‘land grab’ involving claiming streets, stations and venues as Wi-Fi zones.

The reason given was that Wi-Fi standards will be introduced which allow phones to intelligently hop between Wi-Fi connections as they already do with 3G/4G and that they will also be able to switch between mobile data and Wi-Fi data intelligently too.

This will lead to networks offering combined 3G/4G and Wi-Fi packages in their tariffs.

Could the new 5G connectivity chips be the start of this change? It will certainly be interesting to see.