Fourth Generation (4G) Technology is Benchmark of Modern Technology Evolution
ABSTRACT :-
Telecommunication
and networking have been and will be one of the core technologies in helping
the evolution of mankind and technology. If it was not for it for these
channels of communication and data transmission, we would probably still be in
an era where technology is not as advanced as it is today.
Right
from that point of time, the concept of communication using a telephone has
evolved into first long distance telephone calls (at a distance of 6 miles) in
1876, Motorola’s first handheld mobile phone or cell phone in 1973, 1G or first
generation analogue cellular network in 1979 in Japan, 2G or the second
generation digital cellular network based on GSM technology in 1991, 3G or the
third generation mobile communication based on UMTS and CDMA technologies in
2001 and the currently used 4G or fourth generation mobile communication
technology based on LTE standard in 2009.We
all talk about the speed of 4G network while downloading or browsing something
on the internet or while streaming videos whether it gets buffered or not. All
this depends upon the network type you use. I am sure everyone has heard about
1G, 2G, 3G, 4G and the upcoming 5G.
4G
technology is a transition from the earlier technology i.e. 3G technology and
it promises to bring some of the revolutionary changes in the mobile world
which will be very favorable for the mobile users. Fasters data and IP packet
transmissions and a lot of other applications like high quality voice and
multimedia in real-time anywhere across the globe are some incontrovertible
features of the 4G mobile phones. This switching of the technologies is
promised to be accomplished by the end of this commercial year by a number of
mobile carriers like VERIZON and AT&T. Thus, mobile users will be enjoying
the best of the mobile phone technology by the end of the year. 4G technology
is supposed to be the best because all the flaws that were experienced in the
former ones are tried to eliminate in this one to give the best results to the
users.
In
2008, 4G technology started to roll out but had issues to commercially announce
the then communication system as 4G due to minimum standard requirements which
were not fulfilled. But with advancement in wireless telecommunication
technology, minimum requirements for 4G technology were accomplished due to
which authorities agreed to call the existing new technology 4G technology. It
fulfilled the gap that was missing for more secured data transmission. All IP
packet switch network domains are used for 4G compliance which means all
transmission is based on Internet Protocol. Here, data is given the highest
priority.
The
4G architecture comprises of 3 crucial areas of connectivity namely: -
1)
PAN (Personal Area Network)
2)
WAN (Wide Area Network
3)
Cellular Connectivity
Each
device will have the ability to interact with the Internet based information
that is modified over the network used by the device at that time. This
structure can support a wide range of 4G mobile devices that sustain global
roaming.
In
4G networks users that join the network have the ability to add mobile routers
to the infrastructure. Changing user patterns can be accommodated by
dynamically shifting network capacity & coverage. Creating additional
routes as the concentration of people is higher in one area compared to the
other enables additional access to the capacity of the network. Users can
easily avoid congested routes by hoping to the less congested routes. This
allows the network to automatically balance the capacity by increasing the
network utilization. The service for all the users improves with the increase
in number of users.
Need
for 4G: -
One
of the questions that come to mind when thinking about future 4G systems is
there need. The first application to be mobilized was voice telephony, few
years ago. The short message service (SMS) was the first application to be
introduced as a mass-market application. The hardware complexity was not an
issue at the given time along with the advantage of small bandwidth
requirements. The SMS was just the commencement of various data services like
mobile email, web browsing etc. The key feature in most of them was the packet
based wireless networks carrying IP data in one hand and powerful terminals
that could cope with these applications on the other. Although the network
capacity is still not an issue due to a smaller number of users, there are
number of reasons for increased bandwidth requirements in the future. First,
the number of wireless users increases exponentially resulting into an increase
in bandwidth requirement. Second, the popularity of video and music downloads
has increased immensely within few years. The information content in a video or
music is more than the corresponding text but so is the capacity requirement.
Last but not the least, mobile social networks have taken the current internet
usage to a much higher level. Picture viewing sites, web blogs and also video
sharing sites have reshaped the internet.
The
future 4G networks would consists of a set of numerous networks having IP based
services as their common protocol such that the users are in control & can
choose each application and environment. The chief achievement would be
integrating 4G technology with the existing cellular technologies with the help
of advanced technologies. The main features of 4G services that interest the
users specifically are high dynamic integration & application adaptability.
This means services are delivered & available to the users as per their
preference & user’s traffic, radio environment & air interfaces are all
supported by 4G.
4G: The Current Standard
·
The fourth generation of networks is called 4G. It supports
mobile web access like 3G but also gaming services, HD mobile TV, Video
Conferencing, 3D TV and other services that demand higher speeds.
·
With the implementation of 4G, some 3G features are removed,
such as the spectrum radio technology; others are added to higher bit rates due
to smart antennas. The maximum speed of a 4G network when the device is moving
is 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps for low mobility communication like when stationary or
walking.
4G offers HD quality video
calls, teleconferencing with better quality and online gaming streams, secured
and clear voice telephony, etc.
Every
new generation of wireless networks delivers quicker speeds and additional
functionality through our smartphones.
·
1G brought the very 1st cell phones.
·
2G let us text for the phones.
·
3G brought us on-line and
·
4G LTE delivered the speeds that we have a tendency to
fancy these days however as additional users come back on-line.
Features of 4G: -
Features of 4G Wireless Systems:
User Personalization and Friendliness: The combination of
personalization and friendliness is a key feature in 4G. The well-designed
transparency allows man and the machine to interact naturally and is well
appreciated. The operator can send the data to the user depending on his/her
preference or the data can even be filtered at the user end based on his/her
requirement. In order to address a mass market and gain a positive impact on
people’s lifestyle it should be kept in mind that every user wants to feel
unique and important. Thus, personalization enables the user to configure his
device and select the services according to his preferences. The combination
hence confers the right value to the user’s expense.
Heterogeneity: 4G should have a definite advantage in the user’s day-to-day
life. This is obtained by combining the network and terminology heterogeneity,
both of which contribute equally to the efficiency of usage. With network
heterogeneity, omni-directional connection and common service can be obtained
thereby assuring certain level of quality of service. Heterogeneity enables a
user to access and perform multiple things simultaneously for example, if a
user wants to buy tickets to a museum and listen to music, he can do that.
Terminals in 4G may have to some common services out of their capabilities due
to which tailoring of the content might become necessary. Since it is based on IP wireless connectivity,
the optimization of internet is maximized. The circuit switching technology is
replaced by packet switching. The specificity of an IP, thus increase the speed
along with the reliability of transfer of data. The bandwidth is around 100Mhz
and speed of data transmission up to 1 Gbps.
Support: It supports multimedia, voice, video, wireless internet and
other broadband services.
Cost Effective: Transmission costs of various multimedia services are very low.
High capacity, high speed and low cost per bit. Cost of leased spectrum figures
in greatly in reaching profitability. For example, the initial resistance from
the investment society is a hindrance for WiMAX. This in turn pushes the
operators to create new ways of increasing capital.
Ad hoc networks and multi-hop networks: the independency from routers and access
points is an added advantage. The dynamic activation of sender and receiver
nodes is similar to a real-time system that is definitely a plus point of 4G.
Also the network topology comes into play where every node is contributing to
the data transmission.
Global mobility, service portability and scalable mobile
networks.
Predecessors of 4G: -
LTE – Long Term Evolution: -
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is yet another technology under the
brand of 4G technology. LTE is capable of giving a full support to the spectrum
bands. Upgrading the current 3G networks to WiMAX is difficult in comparison to
LTE. The pre 4G technology is known as 3GPP Long Term Evolution. If a 20 MHz
channel is used LTE has a capacity of up to 50 Mbps in the uplink & 100
Mbps in the downlink.
WiMAX- Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access
WiMAX or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a
faster Wi-Fi listed under 4G. Mobile operators using the latest spectrum bands
benefits most
from the WiMAX. If a 20 MHz channel is used WiMAX would offer
data rates
up to 56 Mbps in uplink & 128 Mbps downlink.
UMB – Ultra Mobile Broadband: -
UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) is based on TCP/IP networking
technologies
cascaded over next generation radio system with data rates up to
280 Mbps.
The system was intended to be more proficient & powerful of
supplying more
services than the technologies it was supposed to replace. UMB
was the
name within 3GPP2 standardization group to improve the mobile
standards
for next generation applications & requirements. Qualcomm is
UMB’s lead
sponsor ended the development of this technology supporting LTE
instead.
It intended to achieve data rates over 275 Mbps downstream &
over 75 Mbps upstream.
Flash – OFDM: -
At an initial stage Flash-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing) was supposed to be integrated into a 4G standard.
CONCLUSION:-
Last but not the least the advancement in technology i.e.
transition from the current 3G and 2.5G to 4G will make a drastic change in
context of data transmissions which will be able to carried in some fraction of
seconds. It will be definitely proved very helpful to the future generations.
Nice keep it.
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