4G Wireless Networks - Essay Example

? 4G Wireless Networks Introduction As the suggests, 4th generation wireless technology is an upgraded version of 3rd generation communication technology. Any wireless communication technology can be viewed from different perspectives, namely, data throughput, network architecture, upload-download speed, switching technique, frequency bad, services, and application, and more importantly user’s perception. This paper intends to compare and contrast 3G wireless networks to 4G networks, distinguish between different 4G network services, e.g., 4G LTE, 4G WiMax, and 4G WiBro networks, to identify the key reason behind fierce competition among the 4G LTE carriers, and to describe the benefits of this competition to the subscribers. Two major cellular service providers of USA, AT&T and Verizon will be addressed specifically for case study purpose. Comparison and Contrast between 3G and 4G Objective of this section is to compare and contrast 3G and 4G communication with respect to four specific areas, e.g., service and application, network architecture, data throughput and user perceptions. 3G providers are currently offering services like Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS), and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). On the contrary, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) developed the 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard for 4G services which is commonly known as 4G LTE(Kuran & Tugcu, 2007). From application perspective, 3G provided the users the luxury of multimedia streaming. 4G added more amenities on top of that, including high definition (HD) services for audio-video conference, and online television via smart phone. Such differences in service and applicability are primarily emanated from the network architecture of these two technologies, also from associated upload and download speed. 3G network is based on wide area cell; on the other hand, 4G integrated Local Area Network (LAN) with such wide area architecture. Consequently, data throughput rate for these two technologies also varies significantly. While 3G is offering up to 3.1 mbps with a bandwidth of 5 – 20MHz; data throughput rate for 4G networks is 3 to 5 mbps but potentially estimated at a range of 100 to 300 mbps with a bandwidth of 100MHz (Kuran & Tugcu, 2007) . Whatever the services and other application are, the most important aspect of any wireless service provider is the user feedback. As of yet, 3G wireless network has a broader coverage than 4G network. Therefore, 3G network enjoys the benefit of being readily available to the user. People are happy with 3G performance because it is the upgrade of 2G technology. The users accustomed to the slower connectivity of 2G, are certainly happy with this upgraded version. In this era of technological advancement, until user gets the flavor of new upgrade, he/she always compare the available technology with previous alternative that is why new technology always prevails. Yet now, in case of audio listening or video streaming, 3G did not receive too many complains and these users will not feel the differences between 3G and 4G that much. However, with time and increasing 4G coverage, things may change radically. Differences between Different 4G Communication Varieties As 3G and 4G are different in many ways, there are also distinguishable differences among different types of 4G network services e.g., 4G LTE, 4G WiMax, and 4G WiBro. 4G LTE is the oldest version of 4G wireless which offers 100 Mbps for downloads and 50 Mbps for uploads in ideal scenario(Evans & Baughan, 2000). However, in USA maximum speed provided by 4G LTE is 18.6 Mbps for download and 9.0 Mbps for upload by AT&T. Fixed WiMax, stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, can provide speeds of up to 75 Mbps and Mobile WiMax offering speeds of up to 30 Mbps (Fu et al., 2010). Although, service provider sprint in USA showed download speeds of 3-6 Mbps and upload speeds of 1 Mbps (Sprint, 2013). Wireless Broadband, Wibro, provided by Korean company offers a theoretical speed of exchange has data rates of 56 – 128 Mbps(WibroTM, 2013). User perception regarding 4G network remains somewhat vague (Frattasi, Fathi, Fitzek, Prasad, & Katz, 2006). Users are not that much aware of several version of 4G network. At users end, most important thing is the speed and coverage. In this respect, 4G LTE is the mostly accepted network system in USA. Although there are some intermittent connections in distantly located area, users are overall happy with 4G LTE performances and happy to be a part of it. Whatever are the 4G types, at users end, there should have been a 4G enabled device to communicate with the service provider. For this purpose, it is crucial to consider the backward compatibility of the devices. To extend the privileged of using internet services outside the 4G service area, these devices are made in such a way, so that it can still be operative as a 3G device, i.e., compatibility with GSM and HSPA is ensured. In a similar vein, Wimax, and Wibro technologies are also compatible with 3G. Among these three, 4G LTE has the most area and user coverage thereby wide serviceability. Therefore, 4G LTE service is readily available compared to other two counterparts. Wimax follows LTE in terms of coverage density. However, line of sight is required between antenna and receiving device for long distance connection. Without any line of sight, Wimax service availability can be limited down to 30 square mile while active clear line of sight may increase the coverage area up to 3000 square mile. Wibro is new in the market and launched in Korea as mentioned previously, it will take time to get the widespread network coverage for this wireless service. In terms of transitivity, Wimax and Wibro are equally capable to serve their distant user. Competition among the 4G LTE Carriers 4G wireless technology is a novel method to provide high-speed internet service to the users on the move. In this tech-savvy era, people have a predilection to be engaged to innovative technological advancement in order to be informed and being up-to-date with current affairs. According to Forbes, there are total 5 billion cell phone users in this world at the year 2011. To be specific to USA, 98.4 percent of US population is cell phone subscriber, more importantly 78 percent of the population are internet user (USCensus, 2012). Therefore cellular internet network has a huge market to grow. That is why every mobile carrier is eager to crunch through this market and dominate the market share by providing the best service in terms of speed, connectivity and applications. Being the most updated technology, 4G wireless technology has that promise. That is why every carrier is competing so fiercely to prevail in this business. Such competition is very beneficial to the users, because every carrier will try to draw customer’s attention with better quality of service at affordable price. Therefore, in the end, users are the ultimate winner of this competition among the carriers. Verizon and AT&T’s Market Share In January 2012, Verizon stated that 4G LTE is available in 190 cities covering 200 million American subscribers. Conversely, AT&T stated that they had plans for covering 20 million Americans in 15 markets by end of 2011. As an update to this case, as of June 27, 2013, the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network is available in 500 markets across the United States (Verizon, 2013). on the other hand as of June 17, 2013, AT&T is available in 328 markets in the US (AT&T, 2013). This is primarily because being the pioneer of 4G LTE carriers, Verizon invested their financial and network resources to build a vast network to cover as many area as they can in the year 2011. Back then, AT&T was very new in this 4G market and was started to learn and grow. That is the primary reason was AT&T was far behind Verizon in this network coverage race back in January 2012. With the advantage of starting early and enticing users through third party contractor Verizon burgeoned their market share very fast. Mobile communication market is too unpredictable to extrapolate something concrete from current scenario. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that wireless technology will further mature and more advanced generation wireless communication is to come in future years. However, currently 3G is being dominated by 4G in terms of speed; although in terms of coverage, 3G is still the most widely used cellular data access method. References: Read More