I think he was referring to 4G having lower throughout. Saying 4G->5G for most modems is just a software upgrade for most modems is not quite accurate. The RF

I think he was referring to 4G having lower throughout. Saying 4G->5G for most modems is just a software upgrade for most modems is not quite accurate. The RF hardware itself is generally not a full SDR. There are predefined RF paths tuned for the bands in 4G/5G. So it’s a little more than a software upgrade. Theoretically this is possible but I think companies like Qualcomm are too worried about pushing their new hardware instead of software. I do think it should move in this direction and it would benefit companies like Qualcomm to do this by selling software updates.