4G WIRELESS SYSTEM

In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a

successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards. In 2008, the ITU-R organization
specified the IMT-Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced)
requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at
100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 Gbit/s
for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users). A 4G system
is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based mobile broadband
solution to laptop computer wireless modems, smartphones, and other mobile devices.
Facilities such as ultra-broadband Internet access, IP telephony, gaming services, and
streamed multimedia may be provided to users. Pre-4G technologies such as mobile
WiMAX and first-release 3G Long term evolution (LTE) have been on the market since
2006 and 2009 respectively, and are often branded as 4G. The current versions of these
technologies did not fulfill the original ITU-R requirements of data rates approximately
up to 1 Gbit/s for 4G systems. Marketing materials use 4G as a description for LTE and
Mobile-WiMAX in their current forms. IMT-Advanced compliant versions of the above
two standards are under development and called “LTE Advanced” and “WirelessMAN-
Advanced” respectively. ITU has decided that “LTE Advanced” and “WirelessMAN-
Advanced” should be accorded the official designation of IMT-Advanced. On December
6, 2010, ITU announced that current versions of LTE, WiMax and other evolved 3G
technologies that do not fulfill "IMT-Advanced" requirements could be considered "4G",
provided they represent forerunners to IMT-Advanced and "a substantial level of
improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation
systems now deployed."

In all suggestions for 4G, the CDMA spread spectrum radio technology used in 3G
systems and IS-95 is abandoned and replaced by OFDMA and other frequency-domain
equalization schemes.This is combined with MIMO (Multiple In Multiple Out), e.g.,
multiple antennas, dynamic channel allocation and channel-dependent scheduling.
BACKGROUND

The nomenclature of the generations generally refers to a change in the fundamental

nature of the service, non-backwards compatible transmission technology, and new
frequency bands. New generations have appeared about every ten years since the first
move from 1981 analog (1G) to digital (2G) transmission in 1992. This was followed, in
2001, by 3G multi-media support, spread spectrum transmission and at least 200 kbit/s, in
2011 expected to be followed by 4G, which refers to all-IP packet-switched networks,
mobile ultra-broadband (gigabit speed) access and multi-carrier transmission. The fastest
3G based standard in the WCDMA family is the HSPA+ standard, which was
commercially available in 2009 and offers 28 Mbit/s downstreams without MIMO, i.e.
only with one antenna (it would offer 56 Mbit/s with 2x2 MIMO), and 22 Mbit/s
upstreams. The fastest 3G based standard in the CDMA2000 family is the EV-DO Rev.
B, which was available in 2010 and offers 15.67 Mbit/s downstreams. In mid 1990s, the
ITU-R organization specified the IMT-2000 specifications for what standards that should
be considered 3G systems. However, the cell phone market only brands some of the IMT-
2000 standards as 3G (e.g. WCDMA and CDMA2000), but not all (3GPP EDGE, DECT
and mobile-WiMAX all fulfil the IMT-2000 requirements and are formally accepted as
3G standards, but are typically not branded as 3G). In 2008, ITU-R specified the IMT-
Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced) requirements for 4G
systems.

ITU REQUIREMENTS AND 4G WIRELESS STANDARDS

This article uses 4G to refer to IMT-Advanced (International Mobile

Telecommunications Advanced), as defined by ITU-R. An IMT-Advanced cellular
system must fulfil the following requirements:

• Based on an all-IP packet switched network.

• Peak data rates of up to approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as
mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility such as
nomadic/local wireless access, according to the ITU requirements.
• Dynamically share and utilize the network resources to support more
simultaneous users per cell.
 • Scalable channel bandwidth, between 5 and 20 MHz, optionally up to 40 MHz.
• Peak link spectral efficiency of 15 bit/s/Hz in the downlink, and 6.75 bit/s/Hz in
the uplink (meaning that 1 Gbit/s in the downlink should be possible over less
than 67 MHz bandwidth).
• System spectral efficiency of up to 3 bit/s/Hz/cell in the downlink and 2.25
bit/s/Hz/cell for indoor usage.
• Smooth handovers across heterogeneous networks.
• Ability to offer high quality of service for next generation multimedia support.

In September 2009, the technology proposals were submitted to the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU) as 4G candidates. Basically all proposals are based on
two technologies:

• LTE Advanced standardized by the 3GPP

• 802.16m standardized by the IEEE (i.e. WiMAX)

Present implementations of WiMAX and LTE are largely considered a stopgap solution
that will offer a considerable boost while WiMAX 2 (based on the 802.16m spec) and
LTE Advanced are finalized. Both technologies aim to reach the objectives traced by the
ITU, but are still far from being implemented.

The first set of 3GPP requirements on LTE Advanced was approved in June 2008. LTE
Advanced will be standardized in 2010 as part of the Release 10 of the 3GPP
specification. LTE Advanced will be fully built on the existing LTE specification Release
10 and not be defined as a new specification series. A summary of the technologies that
have been studied as the basis for LTE Advanced is included in a technical report.

Current LTE and WiMAX implementations are considered pre-4G, as they don't fully
comply with the planned requirements of 1 Gbit/s for stationary reception and 100 Mbit/s
for mobile.

Confusion has been caused by some mobile carriers who have launched products
advertised as 4G but which are actually current technologies, commonly referred to as
'3.9G', which do not follow the ITU-R defined principles for 4G standards. A common
argument for branding 3.9G systems as new-generation is that they use different
frequency bands to 3G technologies; that they are based on a new radio-interface
paradigm; and that the standards are not backwards compatible with 3G, whilst some of
the standards are expected to be forwards compatible with "real" 4G technologies.

While the ITU has adopted recommendations for technologies that would be used for
future global communications, they do not actually perform the standardization or
development work themselves, instead relying on the work of other standards bodies such
as IEEE, The WiMAX Forum and 3GPP. Recently, ITU-R Working Party 5D approved
two industry-developed technologies (LTE Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced)[13]
for inclusion in the ITU’s International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-
Advanced program), which is focused on global communication systems that would be
available several years from now. This working party’s objective was not to comment on
today’s 4G being rolled out in the United States and in fact, the Working Party itself
purposely agreed not to tie their IMT-Advanced work to the term 4G, recognizing its
common use in industry already; however, the ITU’s PR department ignored that
agreement and used term 4G anyway when issuing their press release.

The ITU’s purpose is to foster the global use of communications. The ITU is relied upon
by developing countries, for example, who want to be assured a technology is
standardised and likely to be widely deployed. While the ITU has adopted
recommendations for technologies that would be used for future global communications,
they do not actually do the standardization or development work themselves, instead
relying on the work of other standards bodies such as IEEE, The WiMAX Forum and
3GPP. While the ITU has developed recommendations on IMT-Advanced, those
recommendations are not binding on ITU member countries.

4G Predecessors and candidate systems

The wireless telecommunications industry as a whole has early assumed the term 4G as a
short hand way to describe those advanced cellular technologies that, among other things,
are based on or employ wide channel OFDMA and SC-FDE technologies, MIMO
transmission and an all-IP based architecture. Mobile-WiMAX, first release LTE, IEEE
802.20 as well as Flash-OFDM meets these early assumptions, and have been considered
as 4G candidate systems, but do not yet meet the more recent ITU-R IMT-Advanced
requirements.

4G candidate systems

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced (Long-term-evolution Advanced) is a candidate for IMT-Advanced

standard, formally submitted by the 3GPP organization to ITU-T in the fall 2009, and
expected to be released in 2012. The target of 3GPP LTE Advanced is to reach and
surpass the ITU requirements. LTE Advanced is essentially an enhancement to LTE. It is
not a new technology but rather an improvement on the existing LTE network. This
upgrade path makes it more cost effective for vendors to offer LTE and then upgrade to
LTE Advanced which is similar to the upgrade from WCDMA to HSPA. LTE and LTE
Advanced will also make use of additional spectrum and multiplexing to allow it to
achieve higher data speeds. Coordinated Multi-point Transmission will also allow more
system capacity to help handle the enhanced data speeds. Release 10 of LTE is expected
to achieve the LTE Advanced speeds. Release 8 currently supports up to 300 Mbit/s
download speeds which is still short of the IMT-Advanced standards.

Data speeds of LTE Advanced

 LTE Advanced
Peak Download 1 Gbit/s
Peak Upload 500 Mbit/s

IEEE 802.16m or WirelessMAN-Advanced

The IEEE 802.16m or WirelessMAN-Advanced evolution of 802.16e is under

development, with the objective to fulfill the IMT-Advanced criteria of 1 Gbit/s for
stationary reception and 100 Mbit/s for mobile reception.

4G predecessors and discontinued candidate systems

3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE)

Telia-branded Samsung LTE modem

The pre-4G technology 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is often branded "4G", but the
first LTE release does not fully comply with the IMT-Advanced requirements. LTE has a
theoretical net bit rate capacity of up to 100 Mbit/s in the downlink and 50 Mbit/s in the
uplink if a 20 MHz channel is used — and more if multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO), i.e. antenna arrays, are used.
The physical radio interface was at an early stage named High Speed OFDM Packet
Access (HSOPA), now named Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA). The
first LTE USB dongles do not support any other radio interface.

The world's first publicly available LTE service was opened in the two Scandinavian
capitals Stockholm (Ericsson system) and Oslo (a Huawei system) on 14 December 2009,
and branded 4G. The user terminals were manufactured by Samsung.[3] Currently, the two
publicly available LTE services in the United States are provided by Metro PCS,[17] and
Verizon Wireless.[18] AT&T also has an LTE service in planned for deployment between
mid-2011 and end of 2013.[18]

Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e)

The Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005) mobile wireless broadband access (MWBA)
standard (also known as WiBro in South Korea) is sometimes branded 4G, and offers
peak data rates of 128 Mbit/s downlink and 56 Mbit/s uplink over 20 MHz wide
channels[citation needed].

The world's first commercial mobile WiMAX service was opened by KT in Seoul, South
Korea on 30 June 2006.[2]

Sprint Nextel has begun using Mobile WiMAX, as of September 29, 2008 branded as a
"4G" network even though the current version does not fulfil the IMT Advanced
requirements on 4G systems.[19]

In Russia, Belarus and Nicaragua WiMax broadband internet access is offered by a

Russian company Scartel, and is also branded 4G, Yota.

UMB (formerly EV-DO Rev. C)

UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) was the brand name for a discontinued 4G project
within the 3GPP2 standardization group to improve the CDMA2000 mobile phone
standard for next generation applications and requirements. In November 2008,
Qualcomm, UMB's lead sponsor, announced it was ending development of the
technology, favouring LTE instead.[20] The objective was to achieve data speeds over
275 Mbit/s downstream and over 75 Mbit/s upstream.

Flash-OFDM

At an early stage the Flash-OFDM system was expected to be further developed into a
4G standard.

iBurst and MBWA (IEEE 802.20) systems

The iBurst system ( or HC-SDMA, High Capacity Spatial Division Multiple Access) was
at an early stage considered as a 4G predecessor. It was later further developed into the
Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) system, also known as IEEE 802.20.

Objective and approach

Objectives assumed in the literature

4G is being developed to accommodate the quality of service (QoS) and rate

requirements set by further development of existing 3G applications like mobile
broadband access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), video chat, mobile TV, but
also new services like HDTV. 4G may allow roaming with wireless local area networks,
and may interact with digital video broadcasting systems.

In the literature, the assumed or expected 4G requirements have changed during the years
before IMT-Advanced was specified by the ITU-R. These are examples of objectives
stated in various sources:

• A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high
speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively
fixed positions as defined by the ITU-R[21]
• A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world
• Smooth handoff across heterogeneous networks
• Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks
 • High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio,
high speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV, etc.)
• Interoperability with existing wireless standards
• An all IP, packet switched network
• IP-based femtocells (home nodes connected to fixed Internet broadband
infrastructure)

Approaches

Principal technologies

• Physical layer transmission techniques are as follows:

o MIMO: To attain ultra high spectral efficiency by means of spatial
processing including multi-antenna and multi-user MIMO
o Frequency-domain-equalization, for example Multi-carrier modulation
(OFDM) in the downlink or single-carrier frequency-domain-equalization
(SC-FDE) in the uplink: To exploit the frequency selective channel
property without complex equalization.
o Frequency-domain statistical multiplexing, for example (OFDMA) or
(Single-carrier FDMA) (SC-FDMA, a.k.a. Linearly precoded OFDMA,
LP-OFDMA) in the uplink: Variable bit rate by assigning different sub-
channels to different users based on the channel conditions
o Turbo principle error-correcting codes: To minimize the required SNR at
the reception side
• Channel-dependent scheduling: To utilize the time-varying channel.
• Link adaptation: Adaptive modulation and error-correcting codes
• Relaying, including fixed relay networks (FRNs), and the cooperative relaying
concept, known as multi-mode protocol

4G features assumed in early literature

The 4G system was originally envisioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). The DARPA selected the distributed architecture, end-to-end Internet
protocol (IP), and believed at an early stage in peer-to-peer networking in which every
mobile device would be both a transceiver and a router for other devices in the network
eliminating the spoke-and-hub weakness of 2G and 3G cellular systems. Since the 2.5G
GPRS system, cellular systems have provided dual infrastructures: packet switched nodes
for data services, and circuit switched nodes for voice calls. In 4G systems, the circuit-
switched infrastructure is abandoned, and only a packet-switched network is provided,
while 2.5G and 3G systems require both packet-switched and circuit-switched network
nodes, i.e. two infrastructures in parallel. This means that in 4G, traditional voice calls
are replaced by IP telephony.

Cellular systems such as 4G allow seamless mobility; thus a file transfer is not
interrupted in case a terminal moves from one cell (one base station coverage area) to
another, but handover is carried out. The terminal also keeps the same IP address while
moving, meaning that a mobile server is reachable as long as it is within the coverage
area of any server. In 4G systems this mobility is provided by the mobile IP protocol, part
of IP version 6, while in earlier cellular generations it was only provided by physical
layer and datalink layer protocols. In addition to seamless mobility, 4G provides flexible
interoperability of the various kinds of existing wireless networks, such as satellite,
cellular wirelss, WLAN, PAN and systems for accessing fixed wireless networks.

While maintaining seamless mobility, 4G will offer very high data rates with
expectations of 100 Mbit/s wireless service. The increased bandwidth and higher data
transmission rates will allow 4G users the ability to utilize high definition video and the
video conferencing features of mobile devices attached to a 4G network. The 4G wireless
system is expected to provide a comprehensive IP solution where multimedia
applications and services can be delivered to the user on an 'Anytime, Anywhere' basis
with a satisfactory high data rate, premium quality and high security.

4G is described as MAGIC: mobile multimedia, any-time anywhere, global mobility

support, integrated wireless solution, and customized personal service. Some key features
(primarily from users' points of view) of 4G mobile networks are:

• High usability: anytime, anywhere, and with any technology

• Support for multimedia services at low transmission cost
• Personalization
 • Integrated services

Components

Access schemes

As the wireless standards evolved, the access techniques used also exhibited increase in
efficiency, capacity and scalability. The first generation wireless standards used plain
TDMA and FDMA. In the wireless channels, TDMA proved to be less efficient in
handling the high data rate channels as it requires large guard periods to alleviate the
multipath impact. Similarly, FDMA consumed more bandwidth for guard to avoid inter
carrier interference. So in second generation systems, one set of standard used the
combination of FDMA and TDMA and the other set introduced an access scheme called
CDMA. Usage of CDMA increased the system capacity, but as a theoretical drawback
placed a soft limit on it rather than the hard limit (i.e. a CDMA network setup does not
inherently reject new clients when it approaches its limits, resulting in a denial of service
to all clients when the network overloads; though this outcome is avoided in practical
implementations by admission control of circuit switched or fixed bitrate communication
services). Data rate is also increased as this access scheme (providing the network is not
reaching its capacity) is efficient enough to handle the multipath channel. This enabled
the third generation systems, such as IS-2000, UMTS, HSXPA, 1xEV-DO, TD-CDMA
and TD-SCDMA, to use CDMA as the access scheme. However, the issue with CDMA is
that it suffers from poor spectral flexibility and computationally intensive time-domain
equalization (high number of multiplications per second) for wideband channels.

Recently, new access schemes like Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), Single Carrier FDMA
(SC-FDMA), Interleaved FDMA and Multi-carrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) are gaining
more importance for the next generation systems. These are based on efficient FFT
algorithms and frequency domain equalization, resulting in a lower number of
multiplications per second. They also make it possible to control the bandwidth and form
the spectrum in a flexible way. However, they require advanced dynamic channel
allocation and traffic adaptive scheduling.
WiMax is using OFDMA in the downlink and in the uplink. For the next generation
UMTS, OFDMA is used for the downlink. By contrast, IFDMA is being considered for
the uplink since OFDMA contributes more to the PAPR related issues and results in
nonlinear operation of amplifiers. IFDMA provides less power fluctuation and thus
avoids amplifier issues. Similarly, MC-CDMA is in the proposal for the IEEE 802.20
standard. These access schemes offer the same efficiencies as older technologies like
CDMA. Apart from this, scalability and higher data rates can be achieved.

The other important advantage of the above mentioned access techniques is that they
require less complexity for equalization at the receiver. This is an added advantage
especially in the MIMO environments since the spatial multiplexing transmission of
MIMO systems inherently requires high complexity equalization at the receiver.

In addition to improvements in these multiplexing systems, improved modulation

techniques are being used. Whereas earlier standards largely used Phase-shift keying,
more efficient systems such as 64QAM are being proposed for use with the 3GPP Long
Term Evolution standards.

IPv6 support

Unlike 3G, which is based on two parallel infrastructures consisting of circuit switched
and packet switched network nodes respectively, 4G will be based on packet switching
only. This will require low-latency data transmission.

By the time that 4G was deployed, the process of IPv4 address exhaustion was expected
to be in its final stages. Therefore, in the context of 4G, IPv6 support is essential in order
to support a large number of wireless-enabled devices. By increasing the number of IP
addresses, IPv6 removes the need for network address translation (NAT), a method of
sharing a limited number of addresses among a larger group of devices, although NAT
will still be required to communicate with devices that are on existing IPv4 networks.

As of June 2009, Verizon has posted specifications that require any 4G devices on its
network to support IPv6.[29]

Advanced antenna systems

The performance of radio communications depends on an antenna system, termed smart
or intelligent antenna. Recently, multiple antenna technologies are emerging to achieve
the goal of 4G systems such as high rate, high reliability, and long range
communications. In the early 1990s, to cater for the growing data rate needs of data
communication, many transmission schemes were proposed. One technology, spatial
multiplexing, gained importance for its bandwidth conservation and power efficiency.
Spatial multiplexing involves deploying multiple antennas at the transmitter and at the
receiver. Independent streams can then be transmitted simultaneously from all the
antennas. This technology, called MIMO (as a branch of intelligent antenna), multiplies
the base data rate by (the smaller of) the number of transmit antennas or the number of
receive antennas. Apart from this, the reliability in transmitting high speed data in the
fading channel can be improved by using more antennas at the transmitter or at the
receiver. This is called transmit or receive diversity. Both transmit/receive diversity and
transmit spatial multiplexing are categorized into the space-time coding techniques,
which does not necessarily require the channel knowledge at the transmitter. The other
category is closed-loop multiple antenna technologies, which require channel knowledge
at the transmitter.

Software-defined radio (SDR)

SDR is one form of open wireless architecture (OWA). Since 4G is a collection of

wireless standards, the final form of a 4G device will constitute various standards. This
can be efficiently realized using SDR technology, which is categorized to the area of the
radio convergence.

History of 4G and pre-4G technologies

• In 2002, the strategic vision for 4G—which ITU designated as IMT-Advanced—

was laid out.
• In 2005, OFDMA transmission technology is chosen as candidate for the HSOPA
downlink, later renamed 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) air interface E-
UTRA.
• In November 2005, KT demonstrated mobile WiMAX service in Busan, South
Korea.
• In June 2006, KT started the world's first commercial mobile WiMAX service in
Seoul, South Korea.
• In mid-2006, Sprint Nextel announced that it would invest about US$5 billion in a
WiMAX technology buildout over the next few years ($5.45 billion in real terms.
Since that time Sprint has faced many setbacks, that have resulted in steep
quarterly losses. On May 7, 2008, Sprint, Imagine, Google, Intel, Comcast, Bright
House, and Time Warner announced a pooling of an average of 120 MHz of
spectrum; Sprint merged its Xohm WiMAX division with Clearwire to form a
company which will take the name "Clear".
• In February 2007, the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo tested a 4G
communication system prototype with 4x4 MIMO called VSF-OFCDM at 100
Mbit/s while moving, and 1 Gbit/s while stationary. NTT DoCoMo completed a
trial in which they reached a maximum packet transmission rate of approximately
5 Gbit/s in the downlink with 12x12 MIMO using a 100 MHz frequency
bandwidth while moving at 10 km/h, and is planning on releasing the first
commercial network in 2010.
• In September 2007, NTT Docomo demonstrated e-UTRA data rates of 200 Mbit/s
with power consumption below 100 mW during the test.
• In January 2008, a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum
auction for the 700 MHz former analog TV frequencies began. As a result, the
biggest share of the spectrum went to Verizon Wireless and the next biggest to
AT&T Both of these companies have stated their intention of supporting LTE.
• In January 2008, EU commissioner Viviane Reding suggested re-allocation of
500–800 MHz spectrum for wireless communication, including WiMAX.
• On 15 February 2008 - Skyworks Solutions released a front-end module for e-
UTRAN.
• In 2008, ITU-R established the detailed performance requirements of IMT-
Advanced, by issuing a Circular Letter calling for candidate Radio Access
Technologies (RATs) for IMT-Advanced
• In April 2008, just after receiving the circular letter, the 3GPP organized a
workshop on IMT-Advanced where it was decided that LTE Advanced, an
evolution of current LTE standard, will meet or even exceed IMT-Advanced
requirements following the ITU-R agenda.
• In April 2008, LG and Nortel demonstrated e-UTRA data rates of 50 Mbit/s while
travelling at 110 km/h.
• On 12 November 2008, HTC announced the first WiMAX-enabled mobile phone,
the Max 4G
• In December 2008, San Miguel Corporation, Asia's largest food and beverage
conglomerate, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatar Telecom
QSC (Qtel) to build wireless broadband and mobile communications projects in
the Philippines. The joint-venture formed wi-tribe Philippines, which offers 4G in
the country. Around the same time Globe Telecom rolled out the first WiMAX
service in the Philippines.
• On 3 March 2009, Lithuania's LRTC announcing the first operational "4G"
mobile WiMAX network in Baltic states.
• In December 2009, Sprint began advertising "4G" service in selected cities in the
United States, despite average download speeds of only 3–6 Mbit/s with peak
speeds of 10 Mbit/s (not available in all markets).
• On 14 December 2009, the first commercial LTE deployment was in the
Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo by the Swedish-Finnish network
operator TeliaSonera and its Norwegian brandname NetCom (Norway).
TeliaSonera 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). TeliaSonera plans to
roll out nationwide LTE across Sweden, Norway and Finland. TeliaSonera used
spectral bandwidth of 10 MHz, and single-in-single-out, which should provide
physical layer net bitrates of up to 50 Mbit/s downlink and 25 Mbit/s in the
uplink. Introductory tests showed a TCP throughput of 42.8 Mbit/s downlink and
5.3 Mbit/s uplink in Stockholm.
• On 25 February 2010, Estonia's EMT opened LTE "4G" network working in test
regime.
• On 4 June 2010, Sprint Nextel released the first WiMAX smartphone in the US,
the HTC Evo 4G.
• In July 2010, Uzbeistan's MTS deployed LTE in Tashkent.
• On 25 August 2010, Latvia's LMT opened LTE "4G" network working in test
regime 50% of territory.
 • On 6 December 2010, at the ITU World Radiocommunication Seminar 2010, the
ITU stated that LTE, WiMax and similar "evolved 3G technologies" could be
considered "4G".
• On 12 December 2010, VivaCell-MTS launches in Armenia 4G/LTE commercial
test network with a live demo conducted in Yerevan.

Deployment plans

In May 2005, Digiweb, an Irish fixed and wireless broadband company, announced that
they had received a mobile communications license from the Irish Telecoms regulator,
ComReg. This service will be issued the mobile code 088 in Ireland and will be used for
the provision of 4G Mobile communications. Digiweb launched a mobile broadband
network using FLASH-OFDM technology at 872 MHz.

On September 20, 2007, Verizon Wireless announced plans for a joint effort with the
Vodafone Group to transition its networks to the 4G standard LTE. On December 9,
2008, Verizon Wireless announced their intentions to build and begin to roll out an LTE
network by the end of 2009. Since then, Verizon Wireless has said that they will start
their rollout by the end of 2010.

On July 7, 2008, South Korea announced plans to spend 60 billion won, or

US$58,000,000, on developing 4G and even 5G technologies, with the goal of having the
highest mobile phone market share by 2012, and the hope of an international standard.

Telus and Bell Canada, the major Canadian cdmaOne and EV-DO carriers, have
announced that they will be cooperating towards building a fourth generation (4G) LTE
wireless broadband network in Canada. As a transitional measure, they are implementing
3G UMTS that went live in November 2009.

Sprint offers a 3G/4G connection plan, currently available in select cities in the United
States. It delivers rates up to 10 Mbit/s.

In the United Kingdom, Telefónica O2 is to use Slough as a guinea pig in testing the 4G
network and has called upon Huawei to install LTE technology in six masts across the
town to allow people to talk to each other via HD video conferencing and play
PlayStation games while on the move.

Verizon Wireless has announced that it plans to augment its CDMA2000-based EV-DO
3G network in the United States with LTE. AT&T, along with Verizon Wireless, has
chosen to migrate toward LTE from 2G/GSM and 3G/HSPA by 2011.

Sprint Nextel has deployed WiMAX technology which it has labeled 4G as of October
2008. It is currently deploying to additional markets and is the first US carrier to offer a
WiMAX phone.

The U.S. FCC is exploring the possibility of deployment and operation of a nationwide
4G public safety network which would allow first responders to seamlessly communicate
between agencies and across geographies, regardless of devices. In June 2010 the FCC
released a comprehensive white paper which indicates that the 10 MHz of dedicated
spectrum currently allocated from the 700 MHz spectrum for public safety will provide
adequate capacity and performance necessary for normal communications as well as
serious emergency situations.

TeliaSonera started deploying LTE (branded "4G") in Stockholm and Oslo November
2009 (as seen above), and in several Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish cities during 2010.
In June 2010, Swedish television companies used 4G to broadcast live television from the
Swedish Crown Princess' Royal Wedding.

Safaricom, a telecommunication company in East& Central Africa, began its setup of a

4G network in October 2010 after the now retired& Kenya Tourist Board Chairman,
Michael Joseph, regarded their 3G network as a white elephant i.e. it failed to perform to
expectations. Huawei was given the contract the network is set to go fully commercial by
the end of Q1 of 2011

Telstra announced on 15 February 2011, that it intents to upgrade its current Next G
network to 4G with Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology in the central business
districts of all Australian capital cities and selected regional centres by the end of 2011.
Beyond 4G research

A major issue in 4G systems is to make the high bit rates available in a larger portion of
the cell, especially to users in an exposed position in between several base stations. In
current research, this issue is addressed by macro-diversity techniques, also known as
group cooperative relay, and also by beam-division multiple access.

Pervasive networks are an amorphous and at present entirely hypothetical concept where
the user can be simultaneously connected to several wireless access technologies and can
seamlessly move between them (See vertical handoff, IEEE 802.21). These access
technologies can be Wi-Fi, UMTS, EDGE, or any other future access technology.
Included in this concept is also smart-radio (also known as cognitive radio) technology to
efficiently manage spectrum use and transmission power as well as the use of mesh
routing protocols to create a pervasive network.

Pick up any newspaper today and it is a safe bet that you will find an article somewhere
relating to mobile communications. If it is not in the technology section it will almost
certainly be in the business section and relate to the increasing share prices of operators
or equipment manufacturers, or acquisitions and take-overs thereof. Such is the
pervasiveness of mobile communications that it is affecting virtually everyoneâ„¢s life
and has become a major political topic and a significant contributor to national gross
domestic product (GDP).

The major driver to change in the mobile area in the last ten years has been the massive
enabling implications of digital technology, both in digital signal processing and in
service provision. The equivalent driver now, and in the next five years, will be the all
pervasiveness of software in both networks and terminals. The digital revolution is well
underway and we stand at the doorway to the software revolution. Accompanying these
changes are societal developments involving the extensions in the use of mobiles.
Starting out from speech-dominated services we are now experiencing massive growth in
applications involving SMS (Short Message Service) together with the start of Internet
applications using WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and i-mode. The mobile phone
has not only followed the watch, the calculator and the organiser as an essential personal
accessory but has subsumed all of them. With the new Internet extensions it will also lead
to a convergence of the PC, hi-fl and television and provide mobility to facilities
previously only available on one network.
The development from first generation analogue systems (1985) to second generation
(2G) digital GSM (1992) was the heart of the digital revolution. But much more than this
it was a huge success for standardisation emanating from Europe and gradually spreading
globally.

However, world-wide roaming still presents some problems with pockets of US standards
IS-95 (a code division multiple access [CDMA] rather than a time division multiple
access [TDMA] digital system) and IS- 136 (a TDMA variant) still entrenched in some
countries. Extensions to GSM (2G) via GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE
(Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) (E-GPRS) as well as WAP and i-mode (so
called 2.5G) will allow the transmission of higher data rates as well as speech prior to the
introduction of 3G.

Mobile systems comprise a radio access together with a supporting core network. In
GSM the latter is characterised by MAP (Mobile Applications Protocol), which provides
the mobility management features of the system.

GSM was designed for digital speech services or for low bit rate data that could fit into a
speech channel (e.g. 9.6kbit/s). It is a circuit rather than a packet oriented network and
hence is inefficient for data communications. To address the rapid popularity increase of
Internet services, GPRS is being added to GSM to allow packet (Internet Protocol [IP])
communications at up to about 100kbit/s.
Third generation (3G) systems were standardised in 1999. These include IMT-2000
(International Mobile Telecommunications 2000), which was standardised within ITU-R
and includes the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) European
standard from ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), the US derived
CDMA 2000 and the Japanese NTT DoCoMo W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division
Multiple Access) system. Such systems extend services to (multirate) high-quality
multimedia and to convergent networks of fixed, cellular and satellite components. The
radio air interface standards are based upon W-CDMA (UTRA FDD and UTRA TDD in
UMTS, multicarrier CDMA 2000 and single carrier UWC-136 on derived US standards).
The core network has not been standardised, but a group of three”evolved GSM
(MAP), evolved ANSI-41 (from the American National Standards Institute) and IP-
based” are all candidates. 3G is also about a diversity of terminal types, including
many non-voice terminals, such as those embedded in all sorts of consumer products.
Bluetooth (another standard not within the 3G orbit, but likely to be associated with it) is
a short-range system that addresses such applications. Thus services from a few bits per
second up to 2Mbit/s can be envisioned.

For broadband indoor wireless communications, standards such as HIPERLAN 2 (High

Performance Local Area Network”ETSI™s broadband radio access network
[BRAN]) and IEEE 802.lla have emerged to support IP based services and provide some
QoS (quality of service) support. Such systems are based on orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) rather than CDMA and are planned to operate in the
5GHz band.

Whereas 2G operates in 900 and 1800/1900MHz frequency bands, 3G is intended to

operate in wider bandwidth allocations at 2GHz. These new frequency bands will provide
wider bandwidths for some multimedia services and the first allocations have been made
in some countries via spectrum auctions (e.g. in the UK, Holland and Germany) or beauty
contests (in France and Italy). The opportunity has also been taken to increase
competition by allowing new operators into the bands as well as extending existing
operator licences. These new systems will comprise microcells as well as macrocells in
order to deliver the higher capacity services efficiently. 3G and 2G will continue to
coexist for some time with optimisation of service provision between them. Various
modes of delivery will be used to improve coverage in urban, suburban and rural areas,
with satellite (and possibly HAPS”high altitude platform stations) playing a role.

Already, as we move from 2G to 3G the convergence of communications and computing

is central to the realisation of the new generation of services and applications. Digital
technology enables dynamic adaptation of systems, and intercommunicating software
embedded in networks and terminals allows efficient control of the new networks. This is
accentuated as we move from 3G to 4G, extending the range and bit rate of services and
bringing about the convergence of fixed, mobile and broadcast networks, service
provision and terminal types.

Limitations of 3G and drivers for 4G

From its basic conception to the time of roll-out took around ten years for 2G; a similar
period will apply to 3G, which will commence service in 2001/2 and reach full
deployment by 2005. Thus by 2010 it will be time to deploy 4G networks and, working
backwards with the ten year cycle, it is clear that the year 2000 is appropriate to start with
visions for 4G and a research programme aimed at the key issues. The Mobile VCEâ„¢s
second phase research programme has been constructed to meet this aim.

The starting point was to look at current trends. Here we see a phenomenal growth in
mobiles with an estimated global user base that will exceed one billion by 2003. Already
mobile communications exceed fixed communications in several countries and it is
foreseen that mobile communications will subsume fixed by 2010 (fixed”mobile
convergence will be complete). Currently short messaging is booming, especially among
the younger generation, with averages of upwards of 100 messages per month dominating
monthly bills. Business take-up of SMS via information services is also increasing and
providing a start for mobile e-commerce, but this is currently very much limited by the
bit rates available. This will be improved with the introduction of GPRS.

In Europe the WAP system (using Wireless Markup Language”WML) has been slow
to gain market ground; in contrast, in Japan NTT DoC0oMoâ„¢s Ëœi-modeâ„¢ system
had over 10 million subscribers by summer 2000 and is picking up 50000 new customers
per day. Customers are already browsing the Internet, exchanging e-mail, conducting
banking and stock transactions, making flight reservations and checking news and
weather via HTML- based (Hyper Text Markup Language) text information on their
phones. Java is expected to be available on i-mode phones soon, allowing the download
of agents, games etc. and the introduction of location-based services. In Japan, the
number of net phones has now passed the number of wired Internet customers and is
setting the trend that others will surely follow when 3G opens up more bandwidth and
improved quality.
Thus 3G will provide a significant step in the evolution of mobile personal
communications. Mobility appears to be one of the fundamental elements in the evolution
of the information society. As service provision based on Ëœnetwork centricâ„¢
architectures gradually gives way to the Ëœedge-centricâ„¢ architectures, access is
needed from more and more places at all times. But can 3G deliver?

It is true that 3G can support multimedia Internet-type services at improved speeds and
quality compared to 2G. The W-CDMA based air-interface has been designed to provide
improved high-capacity coverage for medium bit rates (384 kbit/s) and limited coverage
at up to 2Mbit/s (in indoor environments). Statistical multiplexing on the air also
improves the efficiency of packet mode transmission. However, there are limitations with
3G as follows:

¢ Extension to higher data rates is difficult with CDMA due to excessive interference
between services.
¢ It is difficult to provide a full range of multirate services, all with different QoS and
performance requirements due to the constraints imposed on the core network by the air
interface standard. For example, it is not a fully integrated system.

In addition, the bandwidth available in the 2GHz bands allocated for 3G will soon
become saturated and there are constraints on the combination of frequency and time
division duplex modes imposed by regulators to serve different environments efficiently.
By the year 2010, one of the key enabling technology developments will be embedded
radio”the widespread availability and use of the $1 radio chip, which will evolve from
short-range wireless developments such as Bluetooth. Embedded radio will eventually
become as common as embedded microprocessors are today, with perhaps 50 such
devices in the typical home, the user being mostly unaware of their presence. As they
interact, in response to the user arriving home for example, they will form a home area
network (HAN). Similarly, such devices will be present in large numbers in vehicles (the
vehicular area network, or VAN), in personal belongings (the personal area network, or
PAN), in the public environment, etc. Such chips will serve as a means of short-range
communication between objects and devices, offering capabilities for monitoring and
control, in most cases without the knowledge or intervention of the user.
As a person moves between these environments such short-range links will allow their
personal profiles and preferences to move with them, with the hotel room automatically
configuring itself to their personal preferred temperatures, TV channels/interests, lighting
etc. However, the integration of such links with wide-area mobile access will enable far
more powerful service concepts, as mobile agents access this pervasive network of
sensors and access information on the userâ„¢s behalf to perform and even pre-empt their
needs and wishes.

Research challenges

Analysis of the underlying technical challenges raised by the above vision and its five
elements has produced three research areas: Networks and services, Software based
systems, Wireless access. These form the basis of the Mobile VCE Phase 2 research
programme.

Networks and services

The aim of 3G is Ëœto provide multimedia multirate mobile communications anytime

and anywhereâ„¢, though this aim can only be partially met. It will be uneconomic to
meet this requirement with cellular mobile radio only. 4G will extend the scenario to an
all-IP network (access + core) that integrates broadcast, cellular, cordless, WLAN
(wireless local area network), short-range systems and fixed wire. The vision is of
integration across these network”air interfaces and of a variety of radio environments
on a common, flexible and expandable platform ” a ˜network of networks™ with
distinctive radio access connected to a seamless IP-based core network a (Fig. 3).
The functions contained in this vision will be:
¢ a connection layer between the radio access and the IP core including mobility
management
¢ internetworking between access schemes ” inter and intra system, handover, QoS
negotiations, security and mobility
¢ ability to interface with a range of new and existing radio interfaces
A vertical view of this 4G vision (Fig. 4) shows the layered structure of hierarchical cells
that facilitates optimisation for different applications and in different radio environments.
In this depiction we need to provide global roaming across all layers.

Both vertical and horizontal handover between different access schemes will be available
to provide seamless service and quality of service.

Network reconfigurability is a means of achieving the above scenario. This encompasses

terminal reconfigurability, which enables the terminal to roam across the different air
interfaces by exchanging configuration software (derived from the software radio
concept). It also provides dynamic service flexibility and trading of access across the
different networks by dynamically optimising the network nodes in the end-to- end
connection. This involves reconfiguration of protocol stacks, programmability of network
nodes and reconfigurability of base stations and terminals.
The requirement is for a distributed reconfiguration control. Fig. 5 demonstrates both
internal node and external network reconfigurability.
For internal reconfiguration the functionality of the network nodes must be controlled
before, during and after reconfiguration and compliance to transmission standards and
regulations must be facilitated.
External reconfiguration management is required to monitor traffic, to ensure that the
means for transport between terminals and network gateways (or other end points) are
synchronised (e.g. by conforming to standards) and to ensure that the databases/content
servers needed for downloadable reconfiguration software are provided.

The research challenges are to provide mechanisms to implement internal and external
configuration, to define and identify application programming interfaces (APIs) and to
design mechanisms to ensure that reconfigured network nodes comply with regulatory
standards.
An example of evolved system architectures is a combination of ad hoc and cellular
topologies. A Ëœmobile ad hoc networkâ„¢ (MANET) is an autonomous system of
mobile routers (and connected hosts) connected by wireless links. The routing and hosts
are free to move randomly and organise themselves arbitrarily; thus the network wireless
topology can change rapidly. Such a network can exist in a stand-alone form or be
connected to a larger internet (as shown in Fig. 6).
In the current cellular systems, which are based on a star-topology, if the base stations are
also considered to be mobile nodes the result becomes a Ëœnetwork of mobile nodesâ„¢
in which a base station acts as a gateway providing a bridge between two remote ad hoc
networks or as a gateway to the fixed network. This architecture of hybrid star and ad hoc
networks has many benefits; for example it allows self-reconfiguration and adaptability
to highly variable mobile characteristics (e.g. channel conditions, traffic distribution
variations, load-balancing) and it helps to minimise inaccuracies in estimating the
location of mobiles.
Together with the benefits there are also some new challenges, which mainly reside in the
unpredictability of the network topology due to mobility of the nodes; this
unpredictability, coupled with the local-broadcast capability, provides new challenges in
designing a communication system on top of an ad hoc wireless network. The following
will be required:
¢ distributed MAC (medium access control) and dynamic routing support
¢ wireless service location protocols
¢ wireless dynamic host configuration protocols
¢ distributed LAC and QoS-based routing schemes.
In mobile IP networks we cannot provide absolute quality-of-service guarantees, but
various levels of quality can be Ëœguaranteedâ„¢ at a cost to other resources. As the
complexity of the networks and the range of the services increase there is a trade-off
between resource management costs and quality of service that needs to be optimised.
The whole issue of resource management in a mobile IP network is a complex trade-off
of signaling, scalability, delay and offered QoS.

As already mentioned, in 4G we will encounter a whole range of new multirate services,

whose traffic models in isolation and in mixed mode need to be further examined. It is
likely that aggregate models will not be sufficient for the design and dynamic control of
such networks. The effects of traffic scheduling, MAC and CAC (connection admission
control) and mobility will be required to devise the dimensioning tools needed to design
4G networks.

Software systems

We have already seen in the previous subsection that to effect terminal and network node
reconfigurability we need a middleware layer. This consists of network intelligence in the
form of object-oriented distributed processing and supporting environments that offer the
openness necessary to break down traditional boundaries to interoperability and uniform
service provision. The mobile software agent approach is an especially important
building block as it offers the ability to cope with the complexities of distributed systems.
Such building blocks may reside at one time in the terminal and then in the network; or
they may be composed of other objects that themselves are mobile. Within the mobile
system there exists a range of objects whose naming, addressing and location are key new
issues. A further step in this development is the application of the Web-service-model
rather than the client/server principle; recent industry tendencies show a shift towards this
paradigm and XML (extensible Markup Language) is seen as the technology of the future
for Web-based distributed services. However this technology has yet to prove its
scalability and suitability for future application in mobile networks.
In addition to the network utilities there will be a range of applications and services
within 4G that also have associated with them objects, interfaces (APIs) and protocols. It
is the entirety of different technologies that underlies the middleware for the new 4G
software system.