We have heard a lot about 4G... and 3G and fastest, widest, smelliest, coolest etc in the cell phone industry. What does it mean? 3G is simply Third Generation Digital Cell Phone Technology. The third evolution in cell phones. Introduced around 2002 and implemented most everywhere by 2004. Now we hear about 4G, that is Fourth Generation Cellular Technology. The next in a natural progression from 3G. So who has 4G? well according to the commercials... everyone! And suddenly too: Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T. So what's the difference? Well to start with lets bust open a little secret. None of them are 4G, at least not true 4G.
4G requirements as created by the International Telecommunication Union states that 4G communication must have at least 100 Mbits/s at its minimum and up to 1 Gbit/s! Well there is a lot more to it then that, but that is the main statement being made here. The rest of the requirements are easily obtainable if those requirements can be met. 3G technology is usually around 1 Mbit/s so we are looking at about 100x increase from 3G to 4G. That's a big increase. Also, not one easily obtainable. Verizon Wireless currently has the fast in the claimed 4G speed with about 5 - 12 Mbits/s which is about 10x faster then 3G, but not fast enough to be declared 4G. Speaking of which what is the difference between companies 3G capabilities?
Well not getting into the technical stuff of frequencies, signal degradation, and so on. There are two types of 3G service in mass use. CDMA and GSM. GSM is the global signal, it is a CHEAP signal. Both in price and in quality. Primarily used by lower developed countries GSM is the most widely used 3G coverage on the planet and requires the infamous SIM card. Usually GSM has decent (at best) calling coverage in most areas, but lacks the development of its counterpart. As such in higher technological countries like the US, China, Japan, etc CDMA is more widely used. GSM companies in the US are mainly T-Mobile and AT&T. Now, CDMA is a Qualcomm technology, licensed to the companies that use it. A better signal, but you will be paying for it. CDMA is not as wide of coverage, but as mentioned is more widely used in technologically advanced countries. CDMA in the US is used by Verizon, Sprint, and Alltel (Alltel one is complicated, but yes it is used by them...). A built in UTC chip is used in combination with a single ESN in CDMA to ID the phones, rather then a removable SIM card. These two technologies don't cross over onto each other, so if you have a CDMA device it can only be used on a CDMA network, and since CDMA networks are license specific UTS chips you usually can't exchange them between carriers either. GSM though since it uses a removable SIM and usually migrate back and forth across GSM networks by just swapping out the SIM for each network... fun right? Well if someone steals your SIM or duplicates it, they have all your info and access to your network and billing. So more fun, but less secure.
Now to 4G, or should I say the claimed "4G". There are three "4G" technologies. WiMax, LTE, and HSPA+. One of these is not like the other, one of these doesn't belong, but first. Why can they get away with calling it 4G? Well ITU was little late to the game. Companies like Sprint and Verizon hard already started licensing the info and various areas (and in some cases countries) as 4G. It wasn't till after this that ITU made up its mind about what 4G was... but to late. Its definition had already been decided upon by the cellular industry, so ITU would just have to suck it. Next time maybe they will come up with the definitions a little faster. So with WiMax and LTE registered as 4G technologies, but with them not being ITU 4G technologies this left the door in on some word play. Since they were, but weren't 4G companies like T-Mobile decided to start calling HSPA+ 4G. The door was open, so why not.
HSPA+ or Evolved High-Speed Packet Access can access insane speeds using already using already built technologies, but it is not sustainable nor is it able to be evolved beyond what it is. Another requirement of 4G is that is independent of 3G and able to be evolved as time goes on. Essentially 3G didn't start off as fast as it did, but over time it evolved to be that fast. 4G should do the same. HSPA+ is not even close, it is 3G technology only enhanced to its full potential. There are currently two companies claiming this as 4G. T-Mobile and AT&T. Here is the best part. They aren't going to keep it. HSPA+ is a stepping stone system for GSM companies to move into LTE. So neither of these networks are looking at long term support of their current "4G" system; and both are already looking at rolling out a closer to truth 4G system in the next few years. So why claim it as 4G now? Well that is mainly because Sprint and Verizon are ahead of the game, and they will have a 4G system rolled out before AT&T and T-Mobile are close to being ready. So this mainly to save face. If you want 4G technology, avoid HSPA+ at all costs.
WiMAX or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is essentially glorified WiFi. I know it is a lot more complicated then that, but that is how it acts. It acts like WiFi using cellular technology. Not a bad concept, there are some complications. This technology is much like CDMA. It uses a similar chip set format (UTC) and connects in much the same manner. When looking at HSPA+, WiMAX has the potential to do 1 Gbit/s ... someday. It is independent, so unlike HSPA+ it can be claimed to be a 4G technology. While it may not be there yet, according to the ITU, it will be there. It will probably be there with in 5 years. So WiMAX is a nice stepping stone to getting on the 4G bandwagon. BUT, deployment is less then spectacular. Currently in the US, Sprint is the only 4G carrier. It also is looking like it will be the only WiMAX carrier in the US, and globally less then 15% of the world is expected to use WiMAX. So coverage will become as issue as Sprint has always had a hard time with coverage in the past on CDMA. And without anyone to share towers with it will be very expensive and difficult to have good coverage on WiMAX. Sprint has already looked at this is while not stating that they will, is already thinking about switching to an LTE deployment. This does not bode well for WiMAX.
Finally we have LTE, Long Term Evolution. Verizon Wireless (parented by Verizon and Vodafone) is the first national US carrier to push LTE deployment. Being a CDMA company it is a straight transition to LTE. LTE works much the same fashion as GSM, this will introduce Verizon people to SIM cards. That is about it though as far as similarities. LTE will have a lower frequency (that means further transmission range) and will not run copper wiring. No copper at all. Instead Verizon Wireless will be banking on its parent company Verizon who recently sold off its landlines to Frontier (Verizon also bought most of Alltel, but that isn't relevant to this). Instead Verizon is focusing on FiOS, or fiber optics. This what will be running to towers instead of copper wiring. This is hard deployment as it fiber optics tend to run in straight line and don't bend easily if at all. While flexible FiOS has been developed most of this will be run the old fashioned way, straight lines with buildings to reprocess info. This may sound hard to use, but it will mean a massively quicker connection from tower to internet then copper has. Combine that with LTE's speed and you have a nice combination. LTE is an independent of 3G service, so like WiMAX it can evolve and get faster. The initial LTE deployment won't be near the speeds required for a true 4G stamp of approval from the ITU. However, LTE-Advanced more then meets the requirements and, much like WiMAX, can probably be integrated about 5 years after initial LTE deployment. Not only that, about 80% of the world is looking to go LTE eventually with some European countries having it already rolled out. So while the official MAX speed may be about 20 Mbits/s from any carrier, LTE on Verizon has seen spikes of 54 Mbits/s. That is already half way to the ITU speed requirements.
Now why is this important? Not to get all political or economical on you, but jobs in the US are going bye bye. Now capitalism is a good thing, and right now American labor is at such an expensive point that it is cheaper to ship it around the world first. This has ALWAYS happened. The issue now is that the jobs that should be replacing it are such very different jobs from what we had before that people aren't acclimating to it well. These are tech jobs. Tech jobs will have a better quality of life associated to the people that do them and won't be as labor intensive as manufacturing and construction jobs. BUT, and this a big but. We need the infrastructure to to support these jobs and, more importantly, educate (or reeducate) people on how to do these jobs. That is going to go to the country with the highest data speed (not just on cell phones, but in general). Currently that is South Korea, the country that is ahead of us that they have TV channels dedicated to computer game play. S. Korea has an average internet speed of 20 Mbits/s. Faster then any other country. As such the FCC is implementing a plan to get the US on top.
In the US the FCC wants every household to have internet speed of 100 Mbits/s or faster by 2020. That means that 100 Mbits/s will be the low end net speeds in the US. With some areas like Chattanooga deploying FiOS that grants up to 1 Gbit/s already this isn't a hard goal for us to hit. We will have to revamp our current lined telecommunication (landlines/DSL). Like wise our cellular speeds will need to make this portable. Thus our cell phones will need to have net access equal to our tethered internet connections. And to get this all up and running we need to start getting this technology into people's hands NOW. It's for the country, for the future, not just because this stuff is awesome.
So, if you are a betting person here are the odds. HSPA+ bad investment, million to one shot of being a 4G winner. WiMax is a decent bet, but not a great one, 10:1 odds. LTE is gold, long term platform its the best. Verizon wants their LTE platform nation wide by the beginning of 2013. AT&T will be next to deploy LTE Starting in 2012 and ending sometime in late 2015. MetroPCS for being prepaid is also betting LTE and has already started its deployment as well. I also wouldn't be surprised to see it tagging onto Verizon's system to pull its sell ahead of all other prepaid only companies. We should be more then able to surpass that FCC goal in cellular tech by 2020.
Now one last note, 3G coverage isn't going away. It will work alongside 4G to support it, as 2G does now. So don't worry if you are a bit behind the bandwagon, but at the same time be prepared for what's next.
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