[Ben]

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/07/14/future_wireless_tech/

I did nearly fall asleep in page 7, but it's still an excellent read - and don't forget to watch, and cringe at, the Genie Internet advert at the start. I remember it like it was yesterday!

[Hands0n]

Wireless telephony is undergoing a revolution, with technology and implementation philosophy each holding the other back in turn as the industry struggles towards wireless nirvana.
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Mobile telephony was predicated on the ability to make voice calls without wires, but the next generation of wireless standards consider voice calling to be a peripheral function. Instead, data takes central stage. Voice is, after all, just another kind of data.


And so begins a rather interesting and clearly explained article on the evolution that we are about to witness from 3G to LTE and [possibly] WiMAX although the latter's future is far from clear.





Data was very much an afterthought in the design of the original mobile telephone
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There followed a sequence of steps in which the industry repeatedly deluded itself that as soon as data connections could be made slightly faster, users would leap to the wireless internet - and be delighted to pay for it.
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Edge is far from dead - many operators around the world still haven't deployed 3G technologies, and even in the UK once you venture outside major cities Edge is the best you can hope for.
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But even with Edge users still resolutely refused to start using mobile data in a big way
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But back in 2000, the mobile industry's self-delusion continued with the promise that 3G services would take the world by storm
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When 3G data services were developed, it was commonly thought that users would want multiple data connections billed at different rates
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Unable to understand the reluctance of users the engineers decided that if only the connections were a little faster then the mobile internet would finally happen
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WiMax had a time advantage - the first version of the standard was completed back in 2005
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But that lead was eroded as regulators struggled to embody a new philosophy that has changed the way that radio spectrum is distributed and used.
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But nothing is going to happen until the middle of 2010 when Ofcom launches the mega-auction of Digital Dividend spectrum - between 400MHz and 800MHz - along with a chunk of 2.6GHz that should have been auctioned off last year, but couldn't because of T-Mobile and O2 legal actions that are only now being resolved. Once that spectrum is in private hands, we'll start to understand to what use those hands intend to put it, though deployments will probably wait until some time around 2012.
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What isn't clear is if we'll see many phone handsets capable of switching between 2G, 3G and 4G technologies.
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... and it's probably computers that will drive LTE adoption rather than handsets, at least initially.
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So the only question is if network operators will expand their 3G networks the fill the cities with LTE, or simply deploy LTE everywhere and quietly forget that 3G ever existed.
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But LTE is effectively unstoppable now and the standard has been formally endorsed by so many mobile operators as to guarantee its eventual domination of, and possible monopoly on, wireless communications in the long term.

Source Article: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/07/14/future_wireless_tech/

And so, not until three years time can we expect to see very much, if at all, in the way of 4G networks based on LTE. By then BT will have its underground fibre well and truly lit up and deployed across a lot of the nation. That will be a tough space for LTE to compete in against FTTH (Fibre To The Home).

But will this government once again decide to cook this golden 4G goose? Undoubtedly it will, if still in power. Its successor, if it loses, is unlikely to be less financially vindictive given the UKs financial state.

For sure LTE will arrive, it has to. I wonder, though, if it will end up as emaciated as 3G has been because of interference by government and its quangos. One has to well and truly hope not.