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4G CELLULAR COMMUNICATIONS; AN OVERVIEW
Introduction
Mobile phone service (also known as cellular mobile telephony) is characterized by
portability or mobility of telephone (or hand set) which unlike land line telephone services
allowed its users to move freely without disrupting their ongoing communication sessions within
the coverage area of the mobile phone service providers. Wireless phone concept was floated in
seventies but fist cellular mobile networks starting serving public in early eighties (Pakistan
welcomed it in early nineties). Early mobile networks began by providing mainly the voice
telephony, which later progressed into text messaging followed by multi-media contents transfer
and race is still on since then to add more and more services with added reliability, network
transportability and some level of authenticity and privacy to contents exchanged over the
network.
In our life time, majority of us have witnessed mobile services upgrading from outdated
analog voice services over AMPS
i
standard to better quality digital voice services incorporating
GSM
ii
standard. Today newly emerging mobile telephony technologies like 3-G and 4-G are
buzzwords in our print as well as electronic media and there is euphoria of excitement among
public over the diversity of services that can be realized with these state of art cellular services.
Further improvements that are currently being planned and worked out for incorporating in
futuristic standards like 5-G networks are going to be accomplished sooner than our imagination.
It will not be an over statement if it is stated that in future mobile phone will the only gadget that
a human being will need to survive in a jungle of ever shrinking civilization.
Evolution of Mobile Networks
Growth of mobile services can be categorized in terms of generations e.g. the
introduction of analog voice and limited data application restricted to only 9.6 kbps rates used
AMPS, TACS
iii
or NMT
iv
standards, occupied only 1.9 kbps bandwidth and worked on FDMA
v
multiplexing techniques but is referred to as First Generation or G-1 for brief.
Second generation of mobile phone networks acronym G-2, that followed G-1, is still in
use in many parts of the world including Pakistan. G-2 provided better quality digital voice and
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supported SMS
vi
services. This architecture also supported multiple standards e.g. TDMA
vii
,
CDMA
viii
etc but it is the GSM standard that mostly dominated second generation of mobile
phone networks. It also supports 14.4 kbps bandwidth.
Improvements in G-2 mobile phone networks, such as packetized data exchange with
higher capacity (384 kbps) bandwidth and access to internet from mobile phone, lead to another
de-facto standard known as 2.5 G. 2.5-G is based on technologies developed on existing GSM
and is optimized for packetized data networking. But the real breakthrough came with 3-G that
supports broad band data up to 2 Mbps bandwidth. ITUs
ix
IMT-2000
x
standard, which is
followed in G-3 networks, requires 144 kbps data for mobile, 384 kbps for pedestrian and 2
Mbps for stationary user. Mobile phone customers seemingly unending appetite for newer
services together with technological advances realized in mobile communications lead the
academia and industry to join hands in materialization of yet another standard G-4 for mobile
phone communications, which will be reviewed in this paper.
4G Standard
Fourth generation of mobile phone networks essentially aim at integrating all the existing
mobile phone networking and communication technologies including those associated with
earlier generations and thus provide a level of multiple services that could only be aspired until
very recently. However unlike earlier generations of mobile phone standards, traditional circuit
switched telephony, where communication centers or nodes established a communication
channel for evoking a session, is no more employed in 4-G standard, instead it is built
exclusively around Internet Protocol for every service and communication. Though 4-G is bound
to replace 3-G standard in times to come, it will remain backward compatible with services and
technologies currently supported by 3-G standard. Nevertheless ultimately 4-G infrastructure
will firmly rest on networks working exclusively on common IP protocol and this will bring
internet services right in every users reach no matter what the device or location.
It is expected that majority of traffic passed over the 4-G networks will be multimedia
data and voice data will be reduced considerably. Obviously this places higher demand on the
bandwidth needed. To meet such heavy demand ITU-R
xi
in its Requirements related to
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technical performance for IMT-Advanced radio interface(s)
1
, a forerunner to G-4 standard
spells out following service/performance parameters
2
:-
It must be based an all-IP packet switched network.
Peak data rates must be up to 100Mbps in high mobility situations and up to
1Gbps for low mobility/stationary applications.
Network resources should be utilized and dynamically shared to support more
users on same connection.
Channel bandwidth should be scalable between 5. 20 and up to 40MHz.
Spectral efficiency should be no less than 15bit/s/Hz and 6.75bit/s/Hz for outdoor
downlink and uplink usage respectively.
Spectral efficiency should be no less than 3bit/s/Hz and 2.25bit/s/Hz for indoor
downlink and uplink usage respectively.
Connection transitions across heterogeneous networks should be smooth.
A high quality of service must be available to allow the next generation of
multimedia support on mobile devices.
4-G standard essentially aims at integrating not only all existing but also services and
technologies visualized in the future in one single flawless network. These services include, but
not limited to, high speed internet access not only from portable computers equipped with 4-G
modems but also from smart phones or other portable devices, on demand video, gaming and
VOIP etc. All these services require lot of machine to machine communication and to protect it
from cyber attacks secure IP becomes extremely essential.
4-G Support Technologies
The differentiating characteristic between existing 3-G and much hyped 4-G standards
is not only just the data rates that can be supported, but also the availability of related
technologies that can keep up with the targeted data rates. EV-DO
xii
, WCDMA
xiii
and HSPA
xiv
are few 3-G technologies that are promising but the fact is that technologies that can fully
1
REPORT ITU-R M.2134; (2008)
2
http://www.4gon.co.uk/solutions/introduction_to_4g.php, last accessed on 20 Oct 2014
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support 4-G standard are currently not available in the communication market. However LTE
xv
and WiMAX
xvi
are two emerging technologies that have already been deployed successfully in
most of 3-G networks and are even hailed as 4-G compliant, but in reality these too fall short of
the specifications imposed by ITU-R in IMT
xvii
Advanced requirements for 4-G standard.
In 3-G scenario, LTE can only handle peak data rates of 100 Mbps, while WiMAX gives
up at 54 Mbps, which obviously requires tremendous improvements to fit in 4-G networks.
Thats why some consider it fitting to refer to these technologies as either pre-4G or 3.90-G
standards. However research is already under way to improve these technologies to even exceed
4-G standard that ITUs IMT-Advanced requirements spelled out. Enhancements are branded as
LTE-Advanced and WiMAX-Advanced. Potential for improvement in these technologies and
fact that these are already serving as fore-runner to 4-G standard may one day influence ITU to
release its 4-G standard that capitalize on advances realized in these technologies.
Versions of LTE-Advanced and WiMAX-Advanced that closely meet the IMT Advanced
requirements, continues to be the todays de-facto 4-G standard. This implies that while existing
established technologies such as GSM, GPRS
xviii
, IMT-2000, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc will continue
to be part and parcel of 4-G networks, other will move away to pave way for the newer ones e.g.
spread system technology and equalization schemes associated with OFDM
xix
will be discarded
while QAM
xx
and MIMO technologies will have to evolve. Since the network architecture (IP
based) will also be different than 3-G networks, circuit switching will become irrelevant and will
render the MSC redundant too. In 4-G networks voice is treated as data packets that can be
handled at the BS. However a VOIP gateway will be needed to route the voice traffic meant for
local regional, national or international fixed land line exchanges.
4-G cellular networks aim at communicating with all existing means of communication
that may include existing 2.5-G and 3-G cellular services, satellite broadband services, WLL,
FWA
xxi
, WLAN, PAN
xxii
etc all over the IP based transport layer. This would require developing
intelligent interfaces that act as cross connect between two technologies without loss of speed or
contents. How the routers will react to different networks is also an issue that would require
service providers attention. 4-G networks will need IP ver 6 for addressing every conceivable
device that must be in the network.
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Conclusion
This review could only address the few salient aspects of 4-G networks of the present and
future. In reality integration issues will be the main concern for service providers of mobile
services in Pakistan, who are stuck with technologies and practices that since long have been
discontinued in advanced countries. No one will be willing to work for free on interfacing these
antiquities with 4-G networks of our, which translates badly into economics. Environment issues
is another aspect that will have to be faced by and addressed by Pakistanis alone or else as
forever, option to live with it is always there. It appears we will have to content with 3-G
standard dubbed as 4-G standard for some times.
i
AMPS: Advanced Mobile Phone System (Cellular System)
ii
GSM: Global System for Mobile Communications
iii
TACS: Total Access Communication System (standard)
iv
NMT: Nordic Mobile Telephone (standard)
v
FDMA: Frequency division Multiple Access
vi
SMS: Small Message Service
vii
TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access
viii
CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access
ix
ITU: International Telecommunication Union
x
IMT-2000: ITUs name for the new 3-G global standard for mobile telecommunications
xi
ITU-R: International Telecommunication Union Sector R
xii
EV-DO: Evolution-Data Optimized (a fast wireless broadband access (3G))
xiii
WCDMA: Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
xiv
HSPA: High Speed Packet Access
xv
LTE: Long Term Evolution
xvi
WiMAX: IEEE 802.16e) standard
xvii
IMT: International Telecommunication Transmission (standard)
xviii
GPRS: General Packet Radio Service
xix
OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
xx
QAM: Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
xxi
FWA: Fixed Wireless Access
xxii
PAN: Personal Access Network
