News of the floor is that 3G will bring much needed telecom growth for INDIA and 4G for developed world. Here I am trying to put the different view about the 4G and its future in developed world.
Verizon-US has launched its 4G service with 2X2 MIMO and most of user reviews are indicating that Downlink data rate is going to be 25 MBPS and uplink close to 5 MBPS. In a lab trial at RIL last month Ericsson has shown 80 MBPS downlink speed and 20 MBPS uplink speed which was maintained at 70 Kmph (with 4X4 MIMO). So we can say that user is going to have more than 10 times of current internet speed in its mobile device.
Now coming to my main agenda, is user really require this much of bandwidth at handset/mobile device, do we have ecosystem of applications which requires that much of band-width (in present context only high definition IPTV/Video and movie download would be helpful from this much of speed) and finally is market i.e. user ready to bear the cost of such speed even if we have such application which require such high bandwidth (because if the speed is 10 times then monthly download per user will increase at least by a factor of two or three i.e. higher cost of data plan). Answer to all above questions is NO at this point of time but is YES in the future.
In 2001 all telecom journals was providing the impression that the growth of 3G will drive the mobile world but in reality 3G operators were struggling with the financial return of 3G and kept on struggling till 2006. The reason for this struggle was very simple i.e. missing of ecosystem of application which would have had required that much of bandwidth offered by 3G apart from the cost of the service. Or in simple world 3G technology was matured in 2001 but market got the maturity in 2007 to accept it commercially. Technical success Verizon has achieved, let’s wish a good luck to Verizon for a early market success of 4G services.
[Guest article by Salil. Reproduced from his blog]
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