4G Wireless Networks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

4G Wireless Networks - Essay Example Two major cellular service providers of USA, AT&T and Verizon will be addressed specifically for case study purpose. Comparison and Contrast between 3G and 4G Objective of this section is to compare and contrast 3G and 4G communication with respect to four specific areas, e.g., service and application, network architecture, data throughput and user perceptions. 3G providers are currently offering services like Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS), and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). On the contrary, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) developed the 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard for 4G services which is commonly known as 4G LTE(Kuran & Tugcu, 2007). From application perspective, 3G provided the users the luxury of multimedia streaming. 4G added more amenities on top of that, including high definition (HD) services for audio-video conference, and online television via smart phone. Such differences in ser vice and applicability are primarily emanated from the network architecture of these two technologies, also from associated upload and download speed. 3G network is based on wide area cell; on the other hand, 4G integrated Local Area Network (LAN) with such wide area architecture. Consequently, data throughput rate for these two technologies also varies significantly. While 3G is offering up to 3.1 mbps with a bandwidth of 5 – 20MHz; data throughput rate for 4G networks is 3 to 5 mbps but potentially estimated at a range of 100 to 300 mbps with a bandwidth of 100MHz (Kuran & Tugcu, 2007) . Whatever the services and other application are, the most important aspect of any wireless service provider is the user feedback. As of yet, 3G wireless network has a broader coverage than 4G network. Therefore, 3G network enjoys the benefit of being readily available to the user. People are happy with 3G performance because it is the upgrade of 2G technology. The users accustomed to the slower connectivity of 2G, are certainly happy with this upgraded version. In this era of technological advancement, until user gets the flavor of new upgrade, he/she always compare the available technology with previous alternative that is why new technology always prevails. Yet now, in case of audio listening or video streaming, 3G did not receive too many complains and these users will not feel the differences between 3G and 4G that much. However, with time and increasing 4G coverage, things may change radically. Differences between Different 4G Communication Varieties As 3G and 4G are different in many ways, there are also distinguishable differences among different types of 4G network services e.g., 4G LTE, 4G WiMax, and 4G WiBro. 4G LTE is the oldest version of 4G wireless which offers 100 Mbps for downloads and 50 Mbps for uploads in ideal scenario(Evans & Baughan, 2000). However, in USA maximum speed provided by 4G LTE is 18.6 Mbps for download and 9.0 Mbps for upload by A T&T. Fixed WiMax, stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, can provide speeds of up to 75 Mbps and Mobile WiMax offering speeds of up to 30 Mbps (Fu et al., 2010). Although, service provider sprint in USA showed download speeds of 3-6 Mbps and upload speeds of 1 Mbps (Sprint, 2013). Wireless Broadband, Wibro, provided by