The landscape of use models for mobile data is rapidly changing, and it is this change that’s sparking 4G development and deployment across the industry. The differentiation between 1G, 2G and 3G was clear; each generation represented a fundamental change in technology. With an explosion of data traffic and with the imminent commercialization of LTE in some developed markets, many have come to believe that 4G equals LTE or WiMAX. Is this a true and valid understanding?
LTE and WiMAX certainly represent a leap in technology from CDMA to OFDMA/MIMO, but they will not offer the data capacity that will be required in the next few years to accommodate traffic growth driven by the rapid penetration of smartphones. 4G should not be understood as a technology shift, rather the speaker believes and will explain that it represents an architecture where multiple access networks will be efficiently used and supported by a converged core network and cloud-based enablers.
Dr. Hideo Okinaka, Vice President, Emerging Technologies and Industry Standards, KDDI Corporation
