Beyond LTE

Enabling the Mobile Broadband Explosion Toward 5G

BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - August 26, 2014) -  4G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the 3GPP family of technologies, today announced the publication of a report by Rysavy Research titled, Beyond LTE: Enabling the Mobile Broadband Explosion. The report compares on multiple levels the mobile broadband technologies of today, as well as the future technologies that are being standardized or planned, and their ability to deliver greater performance in the increasingly complex and challenging mobile computing industry. Comparisons that are provided in the report include throughput speeds for uplink and downlink, spectral capacity, latency, scope and scale, and other important features.

"Major developments for the mobile industry this past year include rapid deployment of 4G LTE networks with expansion to cover nearly all of the U.S. population, deepening smart device capabilities and more sophisticated approaches for addressing data demand which continues to grow unabated," stated Peter Rysavy, President of Rysavy Research and author of this new report for 4G Americas. "Other new developments in the area of spectrum and regulatory policy, to assuage the explosion of mobile broadband traffic, include urgent calls for additional spectrum, and have led to licensing with complex considerations, such as incentive auctions of TV broadcasting spectrum and spectrum sharing between government and commercial entities."

With 6.4 billion connections today, the 3GPP family of technologies is available on nearly 800 networks in more than 220 countries worldwide. It is anticipated that most of those networks will evolve to LTE. Globally, LTE has more than doubled in mobile connections from 124 million at the 2H 2013 to 282 million at the 2H 2014, and the number of deployments has tripled from 96 to 318 commercial networks during the same timeframe. With the first commercial deployment of LTE-Advanced in South Korea in 2013, there are now 17 commercial LTE-Advanced networks with 30 or more expected by the end of this year.

The following are some of the important observations of the paper:

• Mobile broadband -- encompassing networks, devices and applications -- is becoming one of the most successful and fastest growing industries of all time. Computing itself is transitioning from a PC era to a mobile era with many users never having to use a PC.
• Consumer and business applications have driven data demand until now, but machine-to-machine communication, also called the Internet of Things, will generate progressively higher volumes of traffic in the future.
• Cloud computing is a significant and growing contributor to data demand. Growth drivers include cloud-based data synchronization, backup, applications, and streaming media.
• The wireless industry is addressing exploding data demand through a combination of spectrally more efficient technology, denser deployments, small cells, Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets), self-configuration, self-optimization, use of unlicensed spectrum with Wi-Fi, and the future possibility of LTE operation in unlicensed bands.
• LTE is the global-cellular technology platform of choice for wireless carriers and the fastest mobile broadband technology ever deployed.
• The wireless technology roadmap now extends through International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)-Advanced, with LTE-Advanced capable of peak theoretical throughput rates exceeding 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). Key capabilities include carrier aggregation, more advanced smart antennas, and better HetNet support.

Technology advancements reviewed in the report include: