What next? 4G

4G, the successor of 3G, will soon become the standard for cellular wireless. The technology is currently available in some countries but it is still being perfected. The aim is to achieve “ultra broadband speed”- to be counted in gigabytes per second-three or four times faster than 3G.

What is 4G?
When the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) designed 4G in 2002, its official name was “3G Long-Term Evolutions"or 3.9G. It will allow users to download a full-length feature film to their cellular phone, laptop or other devices within five minutes. These will also be able to stream high-definition television and radio to hand-held devices and allow users to walk from one network to the next without an interruption in reception. The International Telecommunication Union - Radio communication sector (ITU-R) has allocated new frequency wavebands to IMT (3G and 4G International Mobile Telecommunications) from 3.4GHz to 3.6GHz and 2.3GHz to 2.4GHz, respectively.
The basic difference between 3G and 4G is in data transfer and signal quality. The highest download and upload speed in 3G are 14 Mbps and 5.8 Mbps respectively, whereas in 4G the download speed is up to 100 Mbps for moving users and 1Gbps for stationary users. Another key change in 4G is the adoption of packet switching instead of circuit switching in voice and video calls. 3G technology is a combination of circuit and packet switching. Circuit switching is an old technology that ties up the resource for as long as the connection is kept up. With packet switching, resources are only used when there is information to be sent across and it allows the mobile phone company to squeeze more conversations into the same bandwidth for voice calls and video calls. All information that is passed around would be packet switched to enhance efficiency. 4G uses spiral multiplexing-an antenna system known for faster transmission and reception of data allowing better signal than that of 3G.

Evolution of 4G:
After its initial design by the ITU, the technology has undergone various changes. The first commercial LTE deployment was in the Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo by the Swedish-Finnish network operator Telia Sonera and its Norwegian brand NetCom. Telia Sonera branded the network "4G". The modem devices on offer were manufactured by Samsung (dongle GT-B3710) and the network infrastructure created by Huawei (in Oslo) and Ericsson (in Stockholm). Telia Sonera plans to roll out nationwide LTE across Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Which countries have 4G?
Except for the Scandinavian countries, a few countries have started the 4G commercially. In the US, Sprint Nextel initiated the service last year. Other countries that are expected to launch 4G by this year are Germany (the first European country to complete the bidding process), Spain, China, Japan and England.

Infrastructure for 4G :
There are three primary technologies that support 4G – WiMAX (Worldwide interpretability for microwave access), LTE (Long Term Evolution), and UMB(Ultra Mobile Broadband). But main doubt is whether to implement WiMAX or LTE, the latter being an upgradation of GSM technology. The advantages of LTE are:

• Faster speed with 100 Mbps for download and 50mbps for upload.


• It makes CDMA and GSM database moot.


• It offers both FDD (Feature Driven Development) and TDD(Test- driven development) duplexing which means that it will have lower latency, which makes real -time interaction on high bandwith application using mobile phone possible.

Many of the world’s major telecom companies like Vodafone, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile , Telecom Italia and France Telecom and vendors like Ericsson, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens and LG Electronics–have all announced plans to deploy LTE-based 4G networks. Some of these service providers are also planning to support both WiMAX and LTE.

WiMAX :

According to Elias Aravantinos and M. Hosein Fallah,the limitation of WiMAX technology is in wireless bandwidth which might not achieve the required rate in a high-density area thereby increasing the cost. However, as a personal broadband option, WiMAX technology becomes useful when it is bundled with IPTV (Internet Protocol television). CDMA based operator Sprint- Nextel, that has introduce 4G to the US, is relying on WiMAX. Another Chicago-based service Xohm indicated the wireless bandwidth to be excellent (roughly 3Mbps/1.5Mbps and 70ms, respectively); but this is nowhere near the +100Mbps /50Mbps that LTE promises.

4G in India?

The inevitable question is when will India get 4G? It has already begun the process of introducing 4G as the TRAI issued a pre-consultation paper few months back that advocates for quick implementation of 4G.Then should we leapfrog from 2G to 4g as we did while introducing 2G in 1995, bypassing 1G analogue system? Many think so. India is among the latecomers in 3G. It is felt that by the time the operators implement 3G fully, 4G technologies such as LTE will be available commercially.It has taken three years for the government to decide on 3G-spectrum auction policy. 4G could face the same delay unless India wants to catch up with the rest of the world.

Copyright@ Business Economics July 15 -31 2010 page 36-37