You Might Be Hearing A Lot About 4G. Let Me Explain What It Is In Two Paragraphs

4G stands for fourth generation of the wireless technology that we have been using so far. Its purpose is to speed up the wireless network, and deliver better service quality users, that is us. Basically, as a user you will be watching YouTube videos without any interruption, downloading the web pages faster, posting FB status updates faster, and tweeting seamlessly without any delay. The standardization bodies define the term Long Term Evolution (LTE) for 4G networks. So, LTE is more technical term, and 4G is more kind of marketing term, but they both refer to the same technology or the network.

4G is more advanced than 3G networks, and it is all IP based. 4G network does not have any circuit switched component in the network, and all traffic is transmitted through IP packets. 4G network uses less number of network elements which reduces the end to end delay in the network, and this satisfies the requirement for better VoIP and Video packet delivery. On the RF side, 4G networks use advanced antenna techniques such as MIMO, which stands for Multiple Input Multiple Output, that basically means that base station or/and user terminal uses more than one antenna to transmit or/and receive the information over the air. 4G networks also use various beamforming techniques in order to increase the coverage and to reduce the interference in the network. There are many more improvements than the ones I mentioned above, but I do not want this blog to be too technical. I just wanted to give you an overview.

To be continued