If you have any questions about 4G cellular communications, then you’ve come to the right place. Just ignore the bad joke about how your “smartphone seems more like a slowphone” and it’s a pretty good article 
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4G 101
- Thread starter John_Keck
- Start date
Team Obi Juan
Your Local Postmaster
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2005
- Messages
- 23,276
Very good read, it was really nice to sort some of this info out!
So, we're paying $60-70/mo for 7mb/s down with time warner... looks like in a couple years I will be using my phone's 4G network and its data plan! screw TWC!
Prices on the phone plans will start to move north before then.
Very good read, it was really nice to sort some of this info out!
Some of the information was a bit off. For example: EVDO is a 3G technology and they fail to mention that 1xRTT is a 144kbit link.
Does anyone know if there are there plans to upgrade wired broadband speeds in the next couple years? I know AT&T has u-verse, but coverage is really sketchy. It seems like wired should always have the advantage over wireless in terms of speed, but if there's nothing coming up, I guess not.
If they switch the last 300 (meter / feet ?) from copper to fiber, your broad band is capable 1Gb (1,073,741,824 bits or 134,217,728 Mega Bytes) but the switching equipment is not going to handle being saturated with everyone streaming HD.
Both MaBell and AT&T where given huge tax right offs to upgrade their networks since the lines were for all intents a purposes public lines, only they got broken up and someone pocketed the money and only some of the infrastructure got upgraded plus someone decided not to take the lines all the way to the houses so people did not need new phones that worked on fiber instead of copper. The other twist is that the backbones can handle the traffic but they are run along side major roads mostly interstates, so places far off the grid (close to an interstate or major roads), simply do not have even the fiber that the northeast and northwest do.
The biggest difference between wireless and wired is the equipment and the effort required to upgrade it. Wired requires an unbroken connection between the sender and receiver, which means that your device starts with a modem which connects to slam which dumps it on whatever series of connections based on which has the least traffic at each intersection but does not take into account that there may be a shorter less congested path but has more congestion at an earlier point. once connected it continues to use that path even if it suddenly gets a lot worse. Wireless receives interference from all the junk that crosses the part of the spectrum you are sending in, which includes illegal devices that do not comply with the FCC rules, police scanners radar interference etc..., as well as solar events, and high particle counts from smoke stacks and wild fires, some fog can enhance or interfere. Upgrading the equipment means that all the receivers and senders have to be upgraded at the same time because for the most part they are not usually backward compatible. The only case is usually cell phones and if they are old enough that can be signal problems as older tech is obsoleted to free up space in a limited bandwidth.
I know some of the details above may be a little fuzzy but I never took it to the internet engineer level. But a little research should sort out any details that may not be current.
Both MaBell and AT&T where given huge tax right offs to upgrade their networks since the lines were for all intents a purposes public lines, only they got broken up and someone pocketed the money and only some of the infrastructure got upgraded plus someone decided not to take the lines all the way to the houses so people did not need new phones that worked on fiber instead of copper. The other twist is that the backbones can handle the traffic but they are run along side major roads mostly interstates, so places far off the grid (close to an interstate or major roads), simply do not have even the fiber that the northeast and northwest do.
The biggest difference between wireless and wired is the equipment and the effort required to upgrade it. Wired requires an unbroken connection between the sender and receiver, which means that your device starts with a modem which connects to slam which dumps it on whatever series of connections based on which has the least traffic at each intersection but does not take into account that there may be a shorter less congested path but has more congestion at an earlier point. once connected it continues to use that path even if it suddenly gets a lot worse. Wireless receives interference from all the junk that crosses the part of the spectrum you are sending in, which includes illegal devices that do not comply with the FCC rules, police scanners radar interference etc..., as well as solar events, and high particle counts from smoke stacks and wild fires, some fog can enhance or interfere. Upgrading the equipment means that all the receivers and senders have to be upgraded at the same time because for the most part they are not usually backward compatible. The only case is usually cell phones and if they are old enough that can be signal problems as older tech is obsoleted to free up space in a limited bandwidth.
I know some of the details above may be a little fuzzy but I never took it to the internet engineer level. But a little research should sort out any details that may not be current.
Does anyone know if there are there plans to upgrade wired broadband speeds in the next couple years? I know AT&T has u-verse, but coverage is really sketchy. It seems like wired should always have the advantage over wireless in terms of speed, but if there's nothing coming up, I guess not.
It will improve.
Uverse offers 24 megs in some areas (typically by combining multiple DSL lines)
comcast areas under the xfinity brand is advertising up to 105 megs in their advertisements
and the potential speed of fiber is basically limitless.
Just because LTE can in theory do 100 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up does not mean that you'll actually see that speed someday, unless you are basically sitting under the tower. There's just simply no way that anyone can send that type of power through the air reliably or cheaply. I live in a area served by clear and the peaks are around 15Mbps and it gets really weak in most homes. (around 6Mbps which is really all they promise you) If we are lucky LTE may get 20Mbps but don't ever think that wireless will some day be as fast or faster than wireless.
all I can comment on is Verizon... the estimated speeds are 5-12mb down, 1-2mb up. <30ms lag. Those speeds of 100mb down and 50mb up were done in a TEST environment. also verizon will have 20-30 cities and 100 million people covered by the end of 2010. Their entire 3G map is scheduled to be covered by 2013, with 90% covered by 2012. The pricing will be tiered with three tiers. The exact pricing is unknown. There will NOT be an unlimited plan for the rollout. It is unknown if one would be offered later.
nimbyfaygo
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2006
- Messages
- 488
At least regarding ATT, they are still going to have network speed and latency problems. A lot of it stems from the fact that they are using old technology behind the scenes. I've been out of the scene for a few years, but then most of the network was Frame relay backbone.
In rural areas users will experience 300-600ms latency due to the microwave hops on the backbone to the switch. Some sites in areas are seriously using 40 year old radios, mux and demux operations are mostly to blame, since the older California brand units demux the whole stream to break off for that site.
A lot of the rural sites are only using 2 Ds1's for data traffic. That will support maybe 10 users at the same time.
The urban areas have different issues, but issues all the same. Fiber connections reduce latency, but channel saturation and blocking creates negative performance. Limited bandwidth for data, and signal degradation reduce users expected data speeds.
ATT's backbone simply is not able to handle the amount of traffic that these new smart phones have demanded.
Interference is a constant problem. A lot of it comes from poorly made or malfunctioning signal boosters.
I'm sure there is a perfect market out there, but I've yet to see one.
We didn't have any signal at the switch in the market I worked at. Can you believe that! The states hub, and the people there don't have service.
In rural areas users will experience 300-600ms latency due to the microwave hops on the backbone to the switch. Some sites in areas are seriously using 40 year old radios, mux and demux operations are mostly to blame, since the older California brand units demux the whole stream to break off for that site.
A lot of the rural sites are only using 2 Ds1's for data traffic. That will support maybe 10 users at the same time.
The urban areas have different issues, but issues all the same. Fiber connections reduce latency, but channel saturation and blocking creates negative performance. Limited bandwidth for data, and signal degradation reduce users expected data speeds.
ATT's backbone simply is not able to handle the amount of traffic that these new smart phones have demanded.
Interference is a constant problem. A lot of it comes from poorly made or malfunctioning signal boosters.
I'm sure there is a perfect market out there, but I've yet to see one.
We didn't have any signal at the switch in the market I worked at. Can you believe that! The states hub, and the people there don't have service.
DarkBahamut
Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2005
- Messages
- 551
Since neither the current Wi-Max spec or LTE actually meet the requirements to be a 4G network at all it's all just a lot of hot air really.
nimbyfaygo
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2006
- Messages
- 488
Its not going to be 4g until they start beaming freaking data lasers at the phones. I want to see that!
ATT just got their 3G network somewhat stable, LOL. I don't trust a 4G iPhone to be anywhere near the caliber as the Evo. Verizon generally has a good network, only because they do tend to "pull an Apple" and tightly control most everything, so I wouldn't expect them to be pioneering anything.
Sprint is really the only network at this point that's trying to be innovative. It just sucks they didn't have any good devices to keep me away from the iPhone at the time.
Sprint is really the only network at this point that's trying to be innovative. It just sucks they didn't have any good devices to keep me away from the iPhone at the time.
At least regarding ATT, they are still going to have network speed and latency problems. A lot of it stems from the fact that they are using old technology behind the scenes. I've been out of the scene for a few years, but then most of the network was Frame relay backbone.
In rural areas users will experience 300-600ms latency due to the microwave hops on the backbone to the switch. Some sites in areas are seriously using 40 year old radios, mux and demux operations are mostly to blame, since the older California brand units demux the whole stream to break off for that site.
A lot of the rural sites are only using 2 Ds1's for data traffic. That will support maybe 10 users at the same time.
The urban areas have different issues, but issues all the same. Fiber connections reduce latency, but channel saturation and blocking creates negative performance. Limited bandwidth for data, and signal degradation reduce users expected data speeds.
ATT's backbone simply is not able to handle the amount of traffic that these new smart phones have demanded.
Interference is a constant problem. A lot of it comes from poorly made or malfunctioning signal boosters.
I'm sure there is a perfect market out there, but I've yet to see one.
We didn't have any signal at the switch in the market I worked at. Can you believe that! The states hub, and the people there don't have service.
A lot of that has changed in the past year or two. Part of the delay in getting service everywhere was running fiber backhaul in rural areas. The other major issues was limited spectrum where they didn't have enough to adequately give bandwidth to both 2g and 3g users and towers were placed configured for a 850mhz network when 3g was on 1900mhz for a while as well.
14.4 megabit HSDPA+ should be in most areas by the end of the year, and the network will also be expanded to reach another 20-25 million, and the more people who give up 2g phones for 3g in NY and SF the better the network will get.
nimbyfaygo
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2006
- Messages
- 488
A lot of that has changed in the past year or two. Part of the delay in getting service everywhere was running fiber backhaul in rural areas. The other major issues was limited spectrum where they didn't have enough to adequately give bandwidth to both 2g and 3g users and towers were placed configured for a 850mhz network when 3g was on 1900mhz for a while as well.
14.4 megabit HSDPA+ should be in most areas by the end of the year, and the network will also be expanded to reach another 20-25 million, and the more people who give up 2g phones for 3g in NY and SF the better the network will get.
I did some quick research and I have to agree with you. I was last in the cellular business in 2007, and I specialized in the backhaul not the transmisison method.
I have to say, the IP LTE systems developed by Lucent does show potential.
I pulled the requirements for 4G from wiki, and ATT has a lot of work to get this accomplished in the metro areas alone.
* Flexible channel bandwidth, between 5 and 20 MHz, optionally up to 40 MHz.
* 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,
* A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world,
* Peak link spectral efficiency of 15 bit/s/Hz in the downlink, and 6.75 bit/s/Hz in the uplink (meaning that 1000 Mbit/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 handoff across heterogeneous networks,
* Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks,[9]
* 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, and
To further support this, I have a quote pulled from ITU-Report M.2134, which can be found here.http://www.itu.int/publ/R-REP-M.2134-2008/en good read btw.
"The peak spectral efficiency is the highest theoretical data rate (normalized by bandwidth), which is the received data bits assuming error-free conditions assignable to a single mobile station, when all available radio resources for the corresponding link direction are utilized (i.e., excluding radio resources that are used for physical layer synchronization, reference signals or pilots, guard bands and guard times)."
It will improve.
Uverse offers 24 megs in some areas (typically by combining multiple DSL lines)
comcast areas under the xfinity brand is advertising up to 105 megs in their advertisements
and the potential speed of fiber is basically limitless.
Just because LTE can in theory do 100 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up does not mean that you'll actually see that speed someday, unless you are basically sitting under the tower. There's just simply no way that anyone can send that type of power through the air reliably or cheaply. I live in a area served by clear and the peaks are around 15Mbps and it gets really weak in most homes. (around 6Mbps which is really all they promise you) If we are lucky LTE may get 20Mbps but don't ever think that wireless will some day be as fast or faster than wireless.
ADSL 2+ Annex M can do in theory 24Mbps down and 3.2Mbps up on a single line. By using bonding you can bond 2 lines together and get 48Mbps down, 6.4Mbps up.