Since the exciting wireless, mobile multimedia services (full-motion video, mobile teleconferencing and collaboration/application sharing) planned for the near future obviously far exceed the current capabilities of 3G mobile telephony, the term 4G has been bandied about quite a bit lately to describe a nebulous, all-IP (well, TCP/IP), super high bandwidth wireless system having optimized smart antenna design, multi-band software-based adapters and wideband radio interfaces.

 

For example, just the other day, Verizon announced that it would develop and deploy its 4G mobile broadband network using LTE — Long Term Evolution — a technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization. The LTE project at the 3GPP is not a standard, and needs the improved Release 8 of the existing UMTS standard to make it into something worthy enough to be called a 4G mobile communications technology. Making it all-IP means that it’s essentially a wireless broadband Internet system with voice and other services running over it. Goals for the project include download rates of 100 Mbps and upload rates of 50 Mbps for every 20 MHz of spectrum, at least 200 active phone calls by users in every 5 MHz cell, and sub-5 millisecond latency for small IP packets.

 

The selection of LTE provides Verizon and Vodafone (News - Alert) — joint owners of U.S.-based Verizon Wireless — with a unique opportunity to adopt a common access platform with true global scale and compatibility with existing technologies of both companies.

 

Interestingly, Verizon Wireless was the first U.S. company to launch high-speed wireless broadband using CDMA Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) technology. 

 

Thanks to standardized support for interworking between CDMA and LTE networks, operators such as Verizon Wireless will be able to start with LTE deployments in key markets and then do a nationwide network rollout including full mobility support between CDMA and LTE networks while leveraging the Global Roaming opportunities with existing GSM/UMTS (News - Alert) Networks and LTE Networks to be deployed.

 

As it happens, Nortel has been a trusted vendor partner for Verizon Wireless in its current network. In December 2006, Nortel announced a five-year, $2 billion agreement to provide Verizon with CDMA technologies, including EV-DO Rev. A.

 

Scott Wickware, VP of Marketing and Strategy for Carrier Networks, Nortel, told TMC (News - Alert), “By embarking on the path to 4G now, Verizon Wireless is able to ensure that they continue offering a superior customer experience and efficient and cost-effective network performance well into the future. Nortel is looking forward to helping Verizon Wireless enhance its current CDMA network, which already offers innovative mobile multimedia services, and explore a seamless evolution path to 4G LTE and true mobile broadband for their subscribers.”

 

“The choice to explore LTE will help Verizon Wireless offer the benefits of true mobile broadband to its future subscribers,” he added. “Verizon has built a reputation in the industry for its leading edge EV-DO network, which already offers innovative multimedia services. Nortel technology forms a significant part of Verizon’s current network, and we’re looking forward to both the ongoing evolution of that network and to this exciting new opportunity to demonstrate our seamless evolution path to 4G LTE, a technology Nortel was the to first demonstrate publicly in February of 2007.”

 

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia (News - Alert)-Siemens, and Nortel. These suppliers, along with others worldwide, have contributed towards development of the standards in 3GPP. Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola (News - Alert), Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

 

“Today’s 4G announcement, coupled with our Open Development initiative announced earlier this week, presents a major growth opportunity for Verizon Wireless,” said Doreen Toben, chief financial officer of Verizon. “Fourth generation’s higher data speeds will usher in a new era of wireless applications and appliances, all of which can benefit from connecting to the nation’s premier wireless network.”

 

One of LTE’s competitors will probably be WiMAX. Each will find its respective niche in the market. Some carriers will push WiMAX, while others will take the more evolutionary path to LTE. It is said by some that WiMAX may actually have a time-to-market advantage over LTE of about two years and, of course, it’s not encumbered by being based on a previously existing standard. LTE, however, has the advantage of being an evolutionary technology that can leverage the existing GSM and CDMA market given that operators are willing to wait for the commercialization of the technology.

 

So, as usual, things should turn out to be quite interesting.