Get Ready For 5G Wireless Nets

peterparkers

By 2020 analyst say that connected "things" are going to be clogging the cellular system, not phones and tablets. I say they've been drinking the Kool-Aid.

Peter,Blog Editor@
http://www.newtravelcoupons.com/travel-deals

6/6/2012 9:05 AM EDT

chanj

"running voice-over-Internet Protocol on an LTE network can require up to 40 bytes of header information to transmit a 24-byte chunk of voice data."

This is an interesting statement. If the voice data is transmitted in G711, a 20ms of voice stream accounts for 1280b, i.e. 160Bytes, of data. If the header is 40B, the efficiency is 75%. The common practice of improving quality and efficiency of voice transmission is by using different encoding algorithm. For example, GSM uses a CODEC which effectively reduce the bandwidth requirement to as much as 6.5kbps. Taking the same example, the payload will be reduced from 160B using G711 to roughly 16B. The efficiency of data transmission is reduced from 75% to 29%.

Anyway, I agree with Sizer, “We try to understand the goal first and then drive the requirements down” into system design. ;)

3/21/2012 3:17 PM EDT

wilber_xbox

I need to keep myself updated with differences bt different "G's". I remember that the major difference is about the bandwidth and the power spectrum but maybe there are more subtle differences.

3/20/2012 2:18 PM EDT

rick.merritt

According to this Bell Labs researcher there will be many more nuanced differences in 5G than 4G. This time it is not mainly a speed upgrade, he says.

3/21/2012 2:05 PM EDT

Bert22306

1G = analog AMPS cellular

2G = narrowband digital voice, typically around 14.4 Kb/s. Either TDMA or narrowband CDMA modulation.

2.5G = Improved data carrying capacity on 2G.

3G = Wideband CDMA, where the voice service is still circuit-oriented.

4G = LTE, where voice and data are IP packets.

BTW, it has always been true that voice over IP creates a lot of overhead for the actual voice data carried. But the point is, when the channel becomes wide enough for broadband, who cares?

3/21/2012 3:29 PM EDT

sharps_eng

Thanks for that explication @Bert22306.

I have always felt uneasy about these 'data-crimes' (e.g. payload way less than framing data), but as you say, who cares?
A much bigger crime is the sloppy use of naming because this can bite back in the form of market confusion.
The classic example is HDTV; it took several years longer than necessary to break because there was no orderly path laid out, no-one knew what HD actually meant, let alone 'HD-Ready'.
The PC market s having the same problem nowadays, because they have sold on clock speed alone for so long that now the clock has topped out at a few GHz they have nowhere else to go. Multicore? That took so long to catch on they ended up giving it away. The only real premium nowadays is in low power consumption, (and about time too).

5/3/2012 6:08 PM EDT

t.alex

True, I am still using 3G at the moment with VOIP software for some distant calls. I do not feel much quality difference. It may matter when it comes to Voice+Video over IP :-)

5/4/2012 2:39 AM EDT

Andrzej11

The differences in "G's" is whatever the marketing departments of the major carriers want them to be. According to the ITU, 4G was supposed to be LTE- Advanced which no one is currently offering and will start to be deployed only in 2013. This hasn't stopped anyone from calling their latest network upgrades, whatever they are, as being 4G. Even as this article talks about 5G, I'm still waiting for true 4G to be available.

3/23/2012 2:59 PM EDT