4G Wireless Technology: Shaping the Future
The mobile phone has evolved from a basic device that just makes calls to a multi functional gadget like the i phone, which can also retrieve e-mail, store and play music, surf the Web, and even stream video files.
This reflects the advance in mobile technology from the 1980’s first-generation (1G) circuit-switched analog systems to today’s 3G and even 3.5G digital technologies.
As always, service providers and users are looking for wireless technologies that offer better performance and more advanced capabilities than their predecessors and that thereby better approximate the experience of using wireline technologies.
With this in mind, the International Telecommunication Union is working on a 4G cellular standard, which the ITU plans to release in a couple of years. The technology would enable IP-based voice, data and streaming multimedia at higher speeds-theoretically up to 288 mega-bits per second for mobile users than current cellular approaches.
The approach could go beyond the cell phone and provide mobile data services to consumer-electronics and other devices that currently don’t have Web access or don’t work wireless. These services could include the sending of photos from cameras to printers and improved video conferencing from laptops.
Several service providers are already experimenting with or soon plan to experiment with potential 4G technologies.
However, 4G implementation could take several years, because carriers want to recover their considerable investments in 3G technology.
Meanwhile, 4G will have to overcome technical and marketplace challenges to become successful.
