Google’s new Motorola-made Nexus 6 is a monster of a phone — both in terms of form and function — with cellular wireless capabilities that outclass any other Android device on the market today. Launching with Android 5.0 Lollipop, the Nexus 6 is sure to be the best flagship of the year — but connectivity-wise, the iPhone 6 beats it by just a hair.

Unlike previous Nexus phones, which were pitched at a lower price point, the Nexus 6 is intended to be a premium flagship product, so it naturally has the wireless specifications to match. It supports Bluetooth 4.1, including support for both Bluetooth Low Energy (branded Bluetooth Smart now) and HD Voice with Bluetooth headsets. It also has NFC (for tags and mobile payment systems) and dual-band WiFi a/b/g/n/ac like its predecessor. However, the Nexus 6 adds 2×2 MIMO support for WiFi 802.11ac to offer up to 867Mbps of throughput.

Cellular mélange

For cellular connectivity, the Nexus 6 has two models: one intended for North America (Model XT1103), and one for the rest of the world (Model XT1100). This scheme is identical to how the Nexus 5 was split the year before. Both models support EDGE, HSPA+21, HSPA+42, LTE, and LTE-Advanced. Four-band GSM; UMTS bands 1 (IMT 2.1GHz), 2 (PCS A-F blocks 1.9GHz), 4 (AWS-1 1.7+2.1 GHz), 5 (Cellular 850MHz), and 8 (Cellular 900MHz); and LTE bands 3 (DCS 1.8GHz), 5 (Cellular 850MHz), 7 (IMT-E 2.6GHz FDD), and 41 (Expanded TDD 2.6GHz) are supported by both models.

Nexus 6 XT1103 adds in tri-band CDMA2000 (with EvDO) and LTE bands 2, 4, 12 (US Lower 700MHz A-C blocks), 13 (US Upper 700MHz C block), 17 (US Lower 700MHz B-C blocks), 25 (PCS A-G blocks 1.9GHz), 26 (ESMR+Cellular 850MHz), and 29 (US Lower 700MHz Supplemental Downlink).

Because it supports band 29, it has support for LTE-Advanced downlink carrier aggregation with bands 2 and 4 to improve downlink performance. It also supports downlink carrier aggregation with bands 2+13, 2+17, 4+5, 4+13, and 4+17. Curiously enough, none of these band combinations that aren’t associated with band 29 indicate “coverage bands” are supported as the primary component carrier (PCC). Instead, they are noted as secondary component carriers (SCC), as denoted in the format PCC+SCC. This means that in the event you move out of range of the PCC (which are bands 2 or 4 on this device), the network connection will drop and have to be re-acquired instead of seamlessly just switching off carrier aggregation. As long as the network re-acquisition is quick (less than one second), it isn’t a problem.

Cellular network support in the US

The support of all three commercially used US 700MHz bands (bands 12, 13, and 17) makes the Nexus 6 the very first device to be fully interoperable on the 700MHz band, completely eliminating the interoperability problem with this phone. It will support T-Mobile’s ever-expanding 700MHz LTE network, along with U.S. Cellular’s, AT&T’s, and Verizon’s 700MHz LTE networks. It also fully supports T-Mobile’s PCS/AWS Wideband LTE and Verizon’s AWS LTE (branded “XLTE”) networks. Critically, it is also the first phone for Verizon that supports carrier aggregation of its 700MHz and AWS LTE networks for faster performance than any other phone for the carrier. It also supports carrier aggregation on the AT&T network, as well as on Bell, Telus, and Rogers in Canada. Though it lacks carrier aggregation for any of Sprint’s LTE bands, it is a tri-band phone that is capable of accessing Sprint’s 2.5GHz LTE TDD network (branded “Spark”).

Cellular network support internationally

Nexus 6 XT1100 (the rest-of-world model) trades CDMA and North American LTE bands for Japanese UMTS bands 6 (Cellular 850MHz subset), 9 (DCS 1.8GHz subset), and 19 (Expanded Cellular 850MHz subset) and global LTE bands 3, 8, 9, 19, 20 (EU 800MHz), and 28 (APT 700MHz). Carrier aggregation bands also changed. This model only supports downlink carrier aggregation with bands 3+5 and 3+8. Like with the North American model, the same carrier aggregation constraints apply, given that the PCC is a higher frequency band than the SCCs.

This model will work well across Europe and Asia, as well as Brazil. It is pretty clear that special care was taken to add support for Japan’s NTT DoCoMo (bands 6 and 19 are exclusively used by it) and SoftBank Mobile (band 9 is exclusively used by it). SoftBank Mobile, China Mobile, and China Unicom are also able to use this with their band 41 LTE deployments combined with UMTS (SoftBank Mobile), GSM (China Mobile), and GSM/UMTS (China Unicom).

Read: The wireless spectrum crunch, illustrated

However, the XT1100 model is not well suited for most of Central and South America (collectively called Latin America). It is likely that once Nexus 6 sales stretch down to Latin America, the North American model will be sold there. Aside from Brazil, Latin America follows the North American band plan with one exception: 700MHz. Most of Latin America uses the APT 700MHz band instead of the crazy US 700MHz band, which means that if an operator offers 700MHz LTE, there’s a good chance that the North American model will not support it. That being said, many of the operators in the Caribbean use the US 700MHz band plan, so it will work there. Note that using this model over the North American model would prevent usage of most non-700MHz LTE networks in Latin America except in Brazil. For those who want to use the Nexus 6 in Latin America with LTE, check with your operator on which bands it uses, and get the appropriate model.

Both models will support GSM and UMTS/HSPA+ perfectly across the world, so at least that will be available no matter which model you pick.

Conclusion

While we have not yet reached the point where we have “one phone to rule them all,” the Nexus 6 gets quite close. It does not quite match the iPhone 6 in its cellular capability, but then, no other phone has either. Choosing a model is easy in North America, Europe, and Asia. However, with Latin America, you must take care to choose the one that matches the country and operator’s bands and technologies.

Now read: What is LTE-Advanced?