After 3G comes 4G
April 10, 2006 | 12:00am
In the Philippines, hardly have we rolled out 3G wireless systems when the world telecommunity is already talking about 4G systems. A paper that was e-mailed to me by a friend at the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) analyzes the growth in the number of mobile subscribers worldwide, and it struck me as truly unprecedented. The figures were spectacular, but they did not bewilder me because every user, to my mind, sooner or later begins to adopt these wireless wonders as a necessary part of his or her existence.
The number of mobile subscribers worldwide, as revealed by the ITU paper, increased from more than 200 million in 1997 to nearly 950 million in 2001. In 2005, the figure reached 1.8 billion. Mobile phones are no longer regarded as expensive devices only for a privileged few. Nowadays it has become a matter of convenience and necessity for indeed it has become an extension of home and office to many.
Several reasons account for such impressive growth. The keen competition among suppliers/manufacturers has provided a substantial price drop in terminals, with very reasonably priced models available to all segments of the market. Those subscribers using wireline broadband Internet are likely to expect parallel degrees of connectivity on the move, with comparable quality of performance and data speeds. If the hopes of the users of exciting new mobile applications and services can be met by the manufacturing industry with efficient and appealing terminals and supporting networks, then there is every reason to expect a future with another wave of impressive increases in data traffic and number of subscribers.
Since competition is so keen in the manufacturing industry, added to the succession of dynamic and attractive applications and innovations, it has become a game of seduction, with the inventor-manufacturers poised to out-seduce the customer. And these exciting services and applications will of course exploit the fact that terminals will support high data rates, and take full advantage of other capabilities which can give the supplier the edge, knowing that this is of utmost importance, such as seamless connectivity to different access networks or peer terminals. Other aspects are just as important as larger memory capacity of terminals, higher processing power and advanced imaging.
From the time when leaders of the world telecommunity first met in Thailand on mobile communications systems more than 15 years ago in 1990, and discussed the policy issues surrounding these systems, the growth in sophistication of applications and speed and efficiency innovations has been enormous. "Convergence," which had very simplistically been defined as the fusion of voice and data in one digital line, had become a mandated matter for each member-jurisdiction to tackle. Policy guidelines were set and convergence legislation for every ITU member was expected.
I don’t think successive congresses of our country managed to pass our convergence law, but I do remember that the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) provided a good deal of technical support for the eventual legislation. This has been overtaken by time because of the genius and inventive imagination of man in the rapid evolution from 1G to 2G to 3G and now, so soon... 4G.
Current mobile communications systems were developed through the institution of more and better capabilities and enhancements. Should the trend continue, potential customers will see a substantial improvement in capability through future enhancements of exciting 3G systems. And the ITU paper noted 4G systems could be realized by functional fusion of existing, enhanced, and newly developed elements of current 3G systems, nomadic wireless access systems, and other wireless systems. At the leaders’ conference mentioned earlier, even as early as then, seamless interworking and high commonality were given as important criteria for greater utilization.
Looking at 4G from this perspective will allow what we now call "legacy systems" like 2G and 3G, their evolutionary development, and new systems to coexist, each being a component part of a highly heterogeneous network – the 4G network. It is correct therefore to say that 4G systems would indeed most likely be based on evolutionary and revolutionary technologies… the novel thing would be the newly developed access concepts.
As we know, the deployment of International Mobile Telecommunications- 2000 (IMT-2000) networks, referring to 3G, has commenced in quite a number of countries including the Philippines. High-speed multimedia services are currently being provided and further developed, and enhancement activities are now being undertaken speedily on a global scale. In fact, for quite a number of years now, there have been bilateral and multilateral exchanges of vision about systems beyond IMT-2000 in various forums and organizations, as well as in the open literature.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the reason beyond this is the fact that there will always be that unrelenting demand for what the Thailand conference called "higher data rates" and "ubiquitous wireless access," driven by a subscriber base that is always intimidating to the competitors. Equipment manufacturers are in a key position and need to react promptly by developing technically efficient and appealing solutions, fulfilling users’ and operators’ expectations within a common and global framework.
At no other time have members of the academic community contributed to identifying and investigating the promising component technologies for future wireless communications systems – 4G and even 5G already. Operators and carriers have a big stake in offering the enhanced services to their customers, at the same time that they evolve critical strategies to maintain and enlarge their subscriber base. Regulators also are at the forefront of this evolution because of their responsibility to respond in as timely a manner as possible, and create regulatory policies and rules towards efficiency in domestic operations, supporting the development likewise of a widely accepted framework.
What is crucial is the active role of the UN agency that governs world telecom, the ITU, where international assemblies are needed to gather the voices of all involved parties and forge a consensus on every relevant issue of global concern. Pre-standardization bodies and discussion forums play a key role in finding that global consensus, as they serve not only as the melting pots of visions, but also as an important stage for technical debate. Considering that these participants and players do not necessarily share the same goals and time plans, no one would be surprised to realize that finding a universal definition of 4G could be an elusive task.
What indeed is the definition of 4G?
We can answer this question by saying that two primary roads will lead us to 4G: (a) through evolution of current systems, and (b) through revolution by creating new systems capable of rendering the highest possible throughputs. These two approaches will coexist and be complementary. In this visionary perspective of the road ahead, in order to keep pace with the world’s requirements in the years to come, capacity will have to be one major issue due to the inevitable new demand for new services, especially those based on multimedia. And personal mobility will also mandate new challenges to the development of new personal and mobile communications systems.
Globally pronounced way back in 1990 at the Bangkok conference, economic and technical trends, together with applications requirements, will drive the future of mobile communications, which has been the motherhood statement for as far back as I can remember and still holds true today.
World competitors have indeed feverishly worked towards the deployment of a network that is spectrum-efficient, offers seamless interoperability, roaming and real content, is always on, technologically transparent and affordable, with high-security features – this is 4G, the "system of systems" and "network of networks." It is an outstanding creation!
Thanks for your e-mails sent to jtl@pldtdsl.net
The number of mobile subscribers worldwide, as revealed by the ITU paper, increased from more than 200 million in 1997 to nearly 950 million in 2001. In 2005, the figure reached 1.8 billion. Mobile phones are no longer regarded as expensive devices only for a privileged few. Nowadays it has become a matter of convenience and necessity for indeed it has become an extension of home and office to many.
Several reasons account for such impressive growth. The keen competition among suppliers/manufacturers has provided a substantial price drop in terminals, with very reasonably priced models available to all segments of the market. Those subscribers using wireline broadband Internet are likely to expect parallel degrees of connectivity on the move, with comparable quality of performance and data speeds. If the hopes of the users of exciting new mobile applications and services can be met by the manufacturing industry with efficient and appealing terminals and supporting networks, then there is every reason to expect a future with another wave of impressive increases in data traffic and number of subscribers.
Since competition is so keen in the manufacturing industry, added to the succession of dynamic and attractive applications and innovations, it has become a game of seduction, with the inventor-manufacturers poised to out-seduce the customer. And these exciting services and applications will of course exploit the fact that terminals will support high data rates, and take full advantage of other capabilities which can give the supplier the edge, knowing that this is of utmost importance, such as seamless connectivity to different access networks or peer terminals. Other aspects are just as important as larger memory capacity of terminals, higher processing power and advanced imaging.
From the time when leaders of the world telecommunity first met in Thailand on mobile communications systems more than 15 years ago in 1990, and discussed the policy issues surrounding these systems, the growth in sophistication of applications and speed and efficiency innovations has been enormous. "Convergence," which had very simplistically been defined as the fusion of voice and data in one digital line, had become a mandated matter for each member-jurisdiction to tackle. Policy guidelines were set and convergence legislation for every ITU member was expected.
I don’t think successive congresses of our country managed to pass our convergence law, but I do remember that the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) provided a good deal of technical support for the eventual legislation. This has been overtaken by time because of the genius and inventive imagination of man in the rapid evolution from 1G to 2G to 3G and now, so soon... 4G.
Current mobile communications systems were developed through the institution of more and better capabilities and enhancements. Should the trend continue, potential customers will see a substantial improvement in capability through future enhancements of exciting 3G systems. And the ITU paper noted 4G systems could be realized by functional fusion of existing, enhanced, and newly developed elements of current 3G systems, nomadic wireless access systems, and other wireless systems. At the leaders’ conference mentioned earlier, even as early as then, seamless interworking and high commonality were given as important criteria for greater utilization.
Looking at 4G from this perspective will allow what we now call "legacy systems" like 2G and 3G, their evolutionary development, and new systems to coexist, each being a component part of a highly heterogeneous network – the 4G network. It is correct therefore to say that 4G systems would indeed most likely be based on evolutionary and revolutionary technologies… the novel thing would be the newly developed access concepts.
As we know, the deployment of International Mobile Telecommunications- 2000 (IMT-2000) networks, referring to 3G, has commenced in quite a number of countries including the Philippines. High-speed multimedia services are currently being provided and further developed, and enhancement activities are now being undertaken speedily on a global scale. In fact, for quite a number of years now, there have been bilateral and multilateral exchanges of vision about systems beyond IMT-2000 in various forums and organizations, as well as in the open literature.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the reason beyond this is the fact that there will always be that unrelenting demand for what the Thailand conference called "higher data rates" and "ubiquitous wireless access," driven by a subscriber base that is always intimidating to the competitors. Equipment manufacturers are in a key position and need to react promptly by developing technically efficient and appealing solutions, fulfilling users’ and operators’ expectations within a common and global framework.
At no other time have members of the academic community contributed to identifying and investigating the promising component technologies for future wireless communications systems – 4G and even 5G already. Operators and carriers have a big stake in offering the enhanced services to their customers, at the same time that they evolve critical strategies to maintain and enlarge their subscriber base. Regulators also are at the forefront of this evolution because of their responsibility to respond in as timely a manner as possible, and create regulatory policies and rules towards efficiency in domestic operations, supporting the development likewise of a widely accepted framework.
What is crucial is the active role of the UN agency that governs world telecom, the ITU, where international assemblies are needed to gather the voices of all involved parties and forge a consensus on every relevant issue of global concern. Pre-standardization bodies and discussion forums play a key role in finding that global consensus, as they serve not only as the melting pots of visions, but also as an important stage for technical debate. Considering that these participants and players do not necessarily share the same goals and time plans, no one would be surprised to realize that finding a universal definition of 4G could be an elusive task.
What indeed is the definition of 4G?
We can answer this question by saying that two primary roads will lead us to 4G: (a) through evolution of current systems, and (b) through revolution by creating new systems capable of rendering the highest possible throughputs. These two approaches will coexist and be complementary. In this visionary perspective of the road ahead, in order to keep pace with the world’s requirements in the years to come, capacity will have to be one major issue due to the inevitable new demand for new services, especially those based on multimedia. And personal mobility will also mandate new challenges to the development of new personal and mobile communications systems.
Globally pronounced way back in 1990 at the Bangkok conference, economic and technical trends, together with applications requirements, will drive the future of mobile communications, which has been the motherhood statement for as far back as I can remember and still holds true today.
World competitors have indeed feverishly worked towards the deployment of a network that is spectrum-efficient, offers seamless interoperability, roaming and real content, is always on, technologically transparent and affordable, with high-security features – this is 4G, the "system of systems" and "network of networks." It is an outstanding creation!
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