July - 2010 issue > In My Opinion

By Atul Bhatnagar

Driven by the increased consumer demand for wireless data bandwidth, cellular data speeds have increased over the last decade by a factor of 10 every 3-5 years. Reporterlink has estimated that wireless data traffic will increase ten-fold between 2009 and 2017 – a 59 percent CAGR. Fueled by a rapid increase in interactive data and multiplay applications, data traffic is expected to hit 1.8 exabytes/month . Video is the largest bandwidth consumer today, a trend that will continue in the foreseeable future.

Mobile carriers are hard at work developing next generation of networks to handle the huge increase in mobile traffic. Long Term Evolution (LTE), also referred to as 4G, is widely acknowledged as the next generation technology for both voice and data wireless transmission. With the exception of the air interface, LTE is an all-IP network – taking advantage of and converging with IP network technology. LTE has some impressive capabilities:

• Support for multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology, including 2x2 and 4x4 configurations.
• 300 Mbps downlink and 150 Mbps uplink bandwidth when using 4x4 MIMO.
• Latencies of less than 5 ms.
• Hundreds of users per cell.

Most major telecom equipment manufacturers (TEMs) and carriers have announced their intention to develop and provide LTE products and services. As of early 2010, 51 providers in 24 countries have made commitments . Early deployments are expected in Asia and North America in 2010, with significant expansions in all major markets in 2012. 2013 will see some 85 million LTE subscribers and nearly half a billion people will use LTE by 2015.

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