4G test approaches 173Mbps down
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
The race for 4G in the United States is sluggishly reaching boilerplate status, as does nearly anything else in a country where telecom moves at the speed of never. While Americans are crippled with EDGE, and sparse availability of Rev A EVDO, other countries such as Japan and the Nordic nations are happily zipping along with mobile TV, crazy-fast downloads and low latency.
Enter Long Term Evolution, or LTE, a technology developed by Nokia with support from the 3GPP. It's an upgrade to existing GSM networks such as the incorrigible EDGE network, and unlike traditional GSM technologies purported to be "3G," but really aren't, LTE goes like the clappers.
Nokia's recent test in Berlin, with a real tower and LTE-equipped phones, demonstrated more than 17 <em>megabytes</em> per second of download bandwidth with appreciable latency. While speed is paramount, range is also a large factor in deployment viability, and Nokia was happy to report sustainable bandwidth more than a kilometer from the single tower.
Even Verizon, a traditional supporter of CDMA (The underlying specification to EVDO), has failed to sign onto the UMB bandwagon which would upgrade their existing EVDO network to 4G. LTE's promising performance has caught the attention of the lads with the red devil horns, and may be the solution to the GSM/CDMA schism which has made half of the US incompatible with the other half for quite some time.
While LTE is a promising technology, its first appearance won't be realized until 2010, while other 4G competitors such as WiMAX are already appearing in limited trials from the likes of Sprint-Nextel.
Via: ars technica
Enter Long Term Evolution, or LTE, a technology developed by Nokia with support from the 3GPP. It's an upgrade to existing GSM networks such as the incorrigible EDGE network, and unlike traditional GSM technologies purported to be "3G," but really aren't, LTE goes like the clappers.
Nokia's recent test in Berlin, with a real tower and LTE-equipped phones, demonstrated more than 17 <em>megabytes</em> per second of download bandwidth with appreciable latency. While speed is paramount, range is also a large factor in deployment viability, and Nokia was happy to report sustainable bandwidth more than a kilometer from the single tower.
Even Verizon, a traditional supporter of CDMA (The underlying specification to EVDO), has failed to sign onto the UMB bandwagon which would upgrade their existing EVDO network to 4G. LTE's promising performance has caught the attention of the lads with the red devil horns, and may be the solution to the GSM/CDMA schism which has made half of the US incompatible with the other half for quite some time.
While LTE is a promising technology, its first appearance won't be realized until 2010, while other 4G competitors such as WiMAX are already appearing in limited trials from the likes of Sprint-Nextel.
Via: ars technica
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