Verizon is calling 4G small cells a “complement” to its existing LTE network and distributed antenna system deployments in hard-to-cover areas like building basements. The operator currently has 497 live LTE markets, which represents 95 percent coverage of its existing 3G footprint.
via Light Reading – Verizon Taps AlcaLu & Ericsson for 4G Small Cells.
Sweden has the fastest LTE network, averaging 22.1 Mbps. Surprisingly Japan has the slowest at just 7.1 Mbps
via OpenSignal – The State of LTE.
Lots of interesting graphs and information in this article.
Current phones generally use only one antenna taking one stream of data at a time. LTE Advanced devices will also need more energy storage to do the necessary onboard computation. Without new breakthroughs in batteries or reductions in power consumption by other means (see “Efficiency Breakthrough Promises Smartphones that use Half the Power”), phones will simply get larger.
Will ubiquitous mobile data bring down its cost for low bandwidth users? We shall see.
HomeFusion customers can expect rates of five to 12 Mbps and upload rates of two to five Mbps, in line with your average DSL or low-end cable Internet connection. The customer is responsible for purchasing a $200 antenna which needs to be professionally installed, and the package includes a wireless router capable of connecting four wired and 20 wireless devices to the network. You must sign a two-year agreement.
via Verizon’s 4G LTE-to-the-Home Service Launches Thursday | PCWorld.
Verizon doesn’t give you much data to work with, so watch what you download or stream: 10GB of data will cost you $60 every month, 20GB, $90, and 30GB, $120. For every gigabyte you go over these limits, Verizon will zap you an extra $10. That’s not the only bad news: The carrier will also not install the antenna above the second story of a building, so apartment dwellers are out of luck.
But while cellular operators have settled on LTE as the primary technology to replace today’s 3G networks, the transition to LTE could be difficult for both network operators and consumers. Rysavy said that getting enough spectrum will be a hard, political process, and bandwidth congestion may drive service providers to implement data caps that make today’s data plans seem luxurious.
via LTE’s future: A scramble for spectrum, and creative data caps | Ars Technica.
“Marketing types at some of the operators got carried away and started applying the 4G term to just enhanced 3G as well as LTE,” Rysavy said. “The IMT caved in, issued a press release and said, ‘That’s OK, you can call it 4G anyway.’”
Here’s the problem: Verizon has spent millions of dollars rolling out its massive LTE network to cover 200 million people so far. You could call it billions, if you include the $5 billion spent on the C Block 700-Mhz spectrum licenses. But according to its first-quarter earnings presentation it’s only been able to convert 9.1 percent of its 93 million users to LTE.
via Why Verizon Doesn’t Want You to Buy an iPhone | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
You Can’t Move an iPhone Customer to 4G
From Verizon’s position, the solution looks simple: move heavy data users in crowded urban areas from 3G to 4G as fast as possible. That would help everyone. The new 4G users get much faster connections, and the 3G users would see better speeds and network quality, too, as that network becomes less crowded.
Huawei says it has “recently introduced…Beyond LTE technology, which significantly increases peak rates to 30Gbps – over 20 times faster than existing commercial LTE networks.”
via iTWire – Huawei claims 30Gbps wireless “beyond LTE”.
However it appears that Huawei is using much greater bandwidth. Its announcement goes on to say: “Key features include: innovative antenna structure [that] greatly improves performance and meets wideband requirements [and] next generation direct radio frequency technology [that] reduces costs and power consumption, and realises ultra broadband carrier aggregation.” (our italics).
The LTE-Advanced specification is for up to 100MHz of bandwidth, which need not be contiguous and up to 8×8 MIMO (eight transmit and eight receive antennas) and a maximum downstream bandwidth of 3.3Gbps.
Apple’s open source (albeit with the source code yet to be released by Apple) video chat spec first launched in 2010 with a vague promise from then-CEO Steve Jobs that it might be available over cellular data connections once the cell networks “get ready for the future.” Since then, there have been plenty of rumors that the iPhone would soon gain the ability to make FaceTime calls over 3G—particularly as the launch of iOS 5 loomed last October—but it still hasn’t happened. Attempting to make a FaceTime call when not connected to a WiFi network results in a pop-up that explains a WiFi network is necessary to complete the action.
via Despite higher network speeds, no FaceTime calls over LTE.
I wonder why FaceTime cares what network carries its data. The network layers should be independent of the application. If it works with WiFi it should work with LTE.
At the floor, there will be a live demo using Android phones, as the Full-HD Voice codec AAC-ELD has been integrated. There’s an LTE network being set up at the show specifically for this demo. Unlike in mobile communications, Full-HD Voice is already established in several VoIP, video telephony and conferencing systems. “Every day, millions of users already make Full-HD Voice calls over IP connections,” said Harald Popp, head of the department Multimedia Realtime Systems at Fraunhofer IIS, “With the introduction of LTE, now is the perfect time to introduce Full-HD Voice to mobile communications as well. Our AAC-ELD audio codec is the perfect solution for all upcoming mobile Full-HD Voice services.”
via Fraunhofer IIS Demos Full-HD Voice Over LTE On Android Handsets – HotHardware.
3GPP Long Term Evolution, usually referred to as LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using new modulation techniques.[1][2] The standard is developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).
via 3GPP Long Term Evolution – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Although commonly referred to as a type of 4G wireless service, LTE release 8 currently in use does not satisfy the requirements set forth by the ITU-R organization. Future releases of LTE (referred to as LTE Advanced) are expected to satisfy the requirements to be considered 4G.