Talk:4G/Archive 2

Too many problems with this article

"A 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based solution where facilities such as voice, broadband Internet access and streamed multimedia should be provided to users." According to whom?

This article is not up to wiki standards. Out of date and needs to be reworked and or deleted. No flow and not noteworthy for an encyclopedia.76.22.20.99 (talk) 22:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The above quote would be according to ITU. However, you're right in pointing it out, as it should be rephrased to declare intent instead of expectation, and it should be attributed to a proper source. The page doesn't need to be deleted, though one could make an argument for stubbing the article (cutting it down to a sentence or two). The topic is clearly Notable according to WP:Notability as there are lots and lots of published independent sources on the concept. Anyone, including yourself, is more than welcome to edit the article to improve it. That's all part of Be Bold. -Verdatum (talk) 22:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree that it is a notable topic and stubbing it would help it out a lot. However, I am finding it difficult to find any sources that are understandable on this topic. At this point, after 4 hours of dilligent research, I am more confused than when I started!! My knowledge into wireless communications is limited to amateur radio. From a technological standpoint, it doesn't delve into this type of data transmission. My curriosity was sparked when I drove past a sprint store that was jam packed with customers and a building touting 4g signs.

All in all, I don't feel comfortable editing this article as I don't know what is valid and what is not. As far as simplifying it, I also don't have a notable simple definition as of yet. From what I have read, 4g is not yet a global standard, which makes it hard to define in laymens terms. 76.22.20.99 (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I hit the exact same problem in trying to find a definition, and I've been coding to wireless telecom specs for 4 years now. ITU defines 4g in briefest terms as 'the thing after 3G that's currently being worked out.' From what I can see, this page is the most concrete claim I can find from Sprint, which effectively says that using WiMax is a sufficient condition to claim a 4G network.

I'm not yet sure if stubbing the page is the right move, but if that happens, I'd recommend moving the ITU details to IMT-Advanced. It's the name ITU has given for the 4G standard; unlike "4G", it's unambiguous; and since it's the technical term as opposed to a marketing term, it's more reasonable to presume that readers who travel to that article are interested in a more technical description. -Verdatum (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The sentence "this article uses 4G to refer to IMT Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced)" is wrong. ITM-advanced is currently only discussed in the article lead. There are no IMT-advanced details to move to some other article as you suggested. The bulk of this article is about what researchers believed 4G should be about a couple of years ago. Mange01 (talk) 12:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

While I concur, there are effectively no IMT-advanced specific details in the article, it is still the research done on the part of ITU on the road towards what is now dubbed IMT-advanced. So I'd consider it valid background information. Some portions (I think slightly more so in previous revisions of the article) may speak more generically about what various entities separate from ITU wanted to see succeed 3G (I'm not quite certain, and it's hard to sort out without confirming all the references). But naturally, those portions wouldn't be appropriate to an IMT-advanced article.

Although I'm not sure what I would put in a 4G article after IMT-advanced had been separated out, the more I think about this, the more I like the idea. The resultant 4g article would probably still be fairly poor for quite awhile; still, I think it would still be an overall improvement, as it should at least clear up some of the confusion. -Verdatum (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand. Sure, if you want to you can create an article on IMT-advanced, but there is not much to write about it except a few requirements. Otherwize the article should only refer to the LTE-advanced and IEEE802.16m articles for technical details. And I don't see creating an ITM-advanced article could improve this article. Most of the text in this article does not fit in the IMT-advanced article since it is about LTE rather than LTE-advanced. I'm a mergist so i don't like short articles about overlapping subjects. Let's solve the main problem instead. We must agree on what parts of this article that should be deleted or moved to the LTE article. 193.10.117.161 (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You may have a point about the technical details and LTE-advanced. I think this is actually the first I've seen of this article and my knowledge on the delineation between IMT-advanced and LTE-advanced is admittedly blurry. I'm a big stickler for article scope myself, and with the exception of WP:SUMMARY sections, I agree that overlapping content should generally be avoided. Beyond that, I'm just thinking that moving off the specific details allows this article to merely cover the term "4G" in a generic sense. I think I'll do some more investigation. -Verdatum (talk) 17:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert either. I have noticed that you have a good understanding of telecommunications, so please don't hesitate contributing to this article. A lot of problems remain, and currently I don't have time. (IMT-advanced = the ITU requirement standard for what systems that can be called 4G. LTE-advanced = a candidate system for 4G. The details of that standard are still unknown.). Mange01 (talk) 05:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for article focus and to-do list

The main problem of this article has i.m.h.o. been that until recently it did not provide a firm definition of 4G, but a lot of visions, objectives and research topics formulated within various research projects. The IMT-advanced definition of 4G is concrete, and will solve that problem. This article should be about IMT-advanced. Another problem is that it has been too research oriented and technical. I suggest that this article should focus only on the following issues:

1. The IMT-advanced objectives and requirements.
2. A comparison of the pre-4G and 4G candidate systems, and the IMT-advanced requirements, especially in terms of Mbps, MHz and spectral efficiency.
3. The history of pre-4G and candidate 4G systems.
4. Spectrum auctions and frequency plans, since these probably are common for several 4G and pre-4G systems
5. Ongoing research regarding beyond 4G systems.

All other issues discussed in this article should be deleted or moved to the articles about each standard.

These are a few suggestions for things to do with this article, in case someone wants to contribute (provided that I get some support for the above):

• The objectives/requirements section should provide details about the IMT-advanced requirements. All old vague expectations on 4G should be removed from the article, especially from that section, even if they are supported by references. We need better sources here.
• Regarding point (2) above, we may "copy" the comparison chart of the 4G candidate systems from reference number 1, http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-9793EN.pdf .
• Frequency bands should be discussed - almost no information is provided about that in the article.
• The disposition should be improved.

Mange01 (talk) 05:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

4G Benefits

(I request some expert in this 4G technology to add a section immediately after the 4G Features section that will enumerate the benefits of 4G technology for the end-user. Please explain in lay terms how this 4G technology will impact the current mobile phone scenario. For instance, you can visualise the impact of the augmented download speed on the development of mobile-TV with multiple channels, etc. Also, the impact that in turn will have upon the development of mobile devices, whether in terms of screen size, or any future innovation, as also the battery life, etc.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wargamer (talk • contribs) 18:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

A lot of that is predictions, and probably shouldn't be added, per WP:CRYSTAL. Screen size has nothing to do with network capabilities, and battery life, though it is taken into account when designing protocols, is generally too complicated to discuss in terms of network used. The availability of services, like mobile-TV, are entirely dependent on what the operator decides to provide its users.

4G for international use

This article does not talk about how 4G is involved with all countries worldwide. Information from international Wikipedia users would help clean up this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TWikisto (talk • contribs) 05:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree- I've begun to add a US specific lens - and it would be ideal to have sections for 4G in each part of the world (which would be much more relevant for people searching). Am also working on separating out overly technical language and translating tech facts into layman's terms (without creating bias). 8/25/2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flying9876 (talk • contribs) 04:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

1G and 2G?

The first two generations of wireless cellular data infrastructures were never referred to as 1G and 2G. They are more commonly known as GPRS and EDGE, and I know that there may be more names for each infrastructure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TWikisto (talk • contribs) 05:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Nono. Thats 2.5G. 1G was analog, and 2G digital circuit switched. Mange01 (talk) 14:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

4G disadvantages

The disadvantages of 4G should also be mentioned. For example, I know that 4G is currently commonly limited to use on laptops because the 4G receivers hog a lot of battery power from the portable device it is attached to. 4G also hogs a lot of bandwidth, and it is more vulnerable to "traffic jams" when multiple users within a close proximity use the network simultaneously. At the moment, 4G is not practical for use on cell phones because the download speeds of 4G are much faster than what most cell phone processors can handle. 3G is plenty fast enough to stream videos from online and has speeds comparable to, and possibly faster than, Comcast's high speed internet via cable. Currently, 4G coverage is very primitive and can be found only in urban areas where many Wi-Fi hotspots already exist. 4G probably won't take off as the most commonly used wireless data infrastructre anytime soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TWikisto (talk • contribs) 06:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the battery power issue is interresting if it is true. DO you have a source? Femtocells/home basestations are so close that you can send with a really low power, and thus battery consumption can be reduced. MIMO gives a diversity gain and beam amplifiction that allows you to reduce the transmission power. I do not unsterstand the traffic jam issue - crosstalk or co-channel interference is handled by the dynamic channel allocation/packet scheduling schemes reduced by MIMO. The other comments are only true for a few years, and therefor not worth mentioning. Mange01 (talk) 21:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Landline broadband = pointless (or not)?

This is a question I have heard many people ask: Why are companies spending vast amounts of money and resources installing fiber-to-the-home cable broadband to every home, when 4G mobile technology could do the job in the near future instead, without the need of usually having to dig-up vast amounts of streets at huge expense and inconvenience to lay new cables?

Reason this question is asked is because 4G speeds as defined by ITU-R's IMT-Advanced standard is for "up to approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as mobile access and up to approximately 1-Gbit/s for low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access", which is more than most homes get in US/EU currently using fiber, and more than they are likely to get over the next few years due to the huge costs of laying new fiber lines.

I think something should be said (though maybe not necessarily on the 4G page?) about why 4G mobile technology may not be able to replace landline broadband internet connection in the home/workplace. If indeed this is even true, as aren't the later WiMax technologies not trying to do this? My limited research and understanding for LTE-Advanced 4G, is mainly that of contention ratio; you'd need many more mobile masts everywhere to cover the vast amount of data throughput each node on the network would possibly use. I couldn't confirm if this was also an issue currently for WiMax. Or even whether either technology also had many other reasons perhaps stopping such landline broadband replacement usage. (one QoS reason I'm guessing at is reliable "Handover" may be an issue here?).

I have so far found little info on this amongst articles on wikipedia, hence my raising the issue here. Anyone with a better understanding on this specific issue? Jimthing (talk) 02:51, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

(This page should only be about the content of the article, but your questions are too interesting, so I make an exception.)

Don't make me choose between a bicycle and car. I need both!

In the 80s a major part of the national and international telephony was mediated by radio links and to some extent satellites, but today all long-range fixed telephony is mediated by optical fibers. So wireless is not the future for wide-area networks and metropolitan area networks. On the other hand, wireless short-range communication (e.g. cordless phones, bluetooth, wifi and cellular telephony) are increasingly replacing wired short-range communication.

4G requires a fixed broadband infrastructure between the base stations. Radio links are probably not enough - we need optical fibres. Especially femtocells (home basestations) that are connected directly to your internet service provider network access rely on fibre-to-the-home and optical metropolitan area networks.

Some emerging economies and 3rd world countries have skipped building infrastructure for wired telephony and went directly to cell phones. Perhaps 3rd world countries might go directly to 3G/4G broadband access, and skip the fiber-to-the-home infrastructure, because by then, the wireless infracture will be less expensive. Maybe one day in the future we will also skip Ethernet to each office in new office buildings. But today broadband access over fibre-to-the-home is cheaper than 3G and LTE access, at least in my country. Also a switched fiber network gives much more capacity for IPTV services, p2p file sharing etc - while 3G and 4G networks do not have capacity for these kind of services since it is a shared medium (multipoint network). THe mobile operators have addressed this problem by introducing montly bandwidth consumption quotas that make full resolution IP-TV impossible.

Due to political decisions in my country (Sweden), fiber-to-the-homes have been common since about 5 years ago. I got it 3 years ago. It all started about 10 years ago with optical metropolitan area networks giving broadband access to network nodes in the cellar of most apartment buildings, and cupper cables from the node to each flat that today provides 100Mbit/s access. Allthough this development in this country, there is a hugh market for mobile broadband. Not as a competitor but as a supplement. I activate my mobile broadband dongle (USB/3G device) when I travel and in my summer house, but I never use it at home or at my place of work. Wifi is available in so many hotels, at the train, at my place of work and at home, it is much chepar, it gives much higher speed and does not suffer from bandwidth consumption restrictions, so I prefer that.

I have no idea how this could be presented at Wikipedia. We need sources. The best place might be the mobile broadband article.Mange01 (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Watch this, a USA perspective: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/FreeSta&showFullAbstract=1 (+ other vids on C-SPAN have other interesting issues). Jimthing (talk) 15:40, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

LTE != 4G

The ITU has defined the requirements for 4G, and most wireless carriers in the US have decided to brand LTE as '4G' even though it is clearly 3.9G by definition. This article needs to be updated to reflect that fact, for example with stronger wording in the section about deployments in the US that it is not true 4G but actually 3.9G being marketed (falsely) as 4G. Ascaroth (talk) 04:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

LTE == 4G

If this article is to continue using the ITU recommendation of what constitutes a '4G' technology, it would appear that basic LTE (and also WiMax) are now being defined as 4G. At the ITU World Radiocommunication Seminar 2010 in Geneva, the ITU stated;

"As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as “4G”, although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed."

Of course it's been speculated they are bending to the marketing used by large wireless providers, but since I can't locate a citation demonstrating this fact, I've left this speculation out of the additions I made to the article.--JefeMixtli (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the finding! How should we reorganize the article, and revise the template in the bottom of the article due to these news? I expect terms like "real 4G" and "3.9 G" still will be used to differ IMT-Advanced compliant versions from first-release LTE and mobile-WiMAX, but we cannot know. I suggest that we wait for more sources than some meeting notes before we decide upon what terminology to use. Mange01 (talk) 00:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The ITU have since clarified their position on the definition of 4G: "Acharya explicitly stated that the ITU does not view LTE, WiMax and HSPA+ as 4G. Acharya said that only LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced is viewed as 4G, and that they view LTE, WiMax and HSPA+ as 'evolved 3G'." (source: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/30124-it’s-official-lte-wimax-and-hspa-not-4g.html) --The Extremist (User, Talk) 15:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

It is also misleading, since these are moving targets. Your link is to a blog post quoting a December 2010 statement (best to get the original statement sourced). Also they are refering to IEEE 802-16e-2005 as WiMAX, while 802-16m-2011 has since been released which also uses the same trademark and was designed to meet the requirements. That is, we need to be explicit about marketing trademarks vs. technical standards and when things happened. W Nowicki (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The future is here

"LTE Advanced will be standardized in 2010" 194.90.46.228 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC).

Radar interference

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/2ghzdiscuss/annexes/report.pdf

4g needs to play nice with s band radars. And vice versa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.16.121 (talk) 00:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://wireless-watch.com/2008/04/06/nortel-and-lg-electronics-demo-lte-at-ctia-and-with-high-vehicle-speeds/
  • In E-UTRA on 2011-03-17 18:44:24, 404 Not Found
  • In 4G on 2011-06-19 14:08:43, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 14:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done The dead link is now replaced by web.archive.org link. Mange01 (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Updated Page August 2011

Hi all,

I decided to be bold after several months of researching about 4G (an unofficial expert now) and being frustrated by the lack of coherent Wikipedia article on the subject.

Ergo, I've begun to try to fix it. I will be adding in more information over the weekend (don't yet think it's complete), but hopefully it's seen as a step in the right direction. Particularly since 4G now has a universally-accepted definition and the networks have settled on a path forward. Flying9876 (talk) 09:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've posted a link in the 4G == LTE section above to a recent article that quotes the ITU as saying that LTE, WiMAX and HSPA are *not* 4G. I also don't think that it's necessarily correct to say that all networks will use LTE, necessarily (though I may personally agree). Perhaps in the US this is the case, but there are a number of folks out there arguing that LTE is more complex to implement than other standards and are pushing for other standards to be used, especially in developing nations. Don't know if this will be a purely academic argument, but even if you look at the ITU's recommendations for partitioning spectrum in the EMEA region there's a nice 50MHz chunk for TDD tech - which may not be used to roll out LTE due to limited uptake (and hence costly end-user devices). --The Extremist (User, Talk) 15:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Aha - thank you. I will update that this evening when I have time. Perhaps it makes the most sense to break out the reality of 4G in the U.S. today (since that's the colloquial understanding of what is available - similar to what is there now); followed by a concise history of the 4G controversy (presenting both sides, of course); and then a theoretical discussion of what the ITC-U considers 4G to be. Flying9876 (talk) 18:17, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Adding to my thought here to clarify, the U.S. reality & U.S. controversy would both be under a specific U.S. Section. Then there would also be a theoretical / engineering discussion section for the global discussion.

It certainly did need updating, and I suppose the split out of IMT Advanced makes sense, although that should have been discussed first. That page has several formatting problems, and this one has several style issues now introduced, which is why I downgraded the assessment. Sentences with nouns and verbs forming coherent paragraphs are better than bullets. Please read the discussion of WP:Link rot for example to see why raw URLs are evil. Also be careful deleting cited content even if it is out of date. Normally simple past tense should be used with dates to put things in context: "In 2009, xxx technology had a market share estimated at 60%.<ref>{{cite source}}</ref> By 2011, its share had dropped to 30%.<ref>{{cite newer source}}</ref> " would be much better than just stating what is "current" since that is guaranteed to become out of date too. The claim that something is "gold standard" of course is opinion and should be avoided. Stick to facts in neutral tone. W Nowicki (talk) 17:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Apologies - am new and still learning the process. Thanks for your tips. I'll go back and integrate your feedback if not later tonight, then this weekend (assuming no Hurricane power outages as I'm on the east coast of the U.S.) Style-wise, what makes bullets unappealing? Honestly wondering - not meaning to be defensive; mostly curious since I often have trouble scanning what I'm looking for if it's a bunch of text together. Flying9876 (talk) 18:17, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh yes, these things take time to learn. Perhaps I am showing my age, but Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, so use prose generally. Most web browsers have a search function, and other places are more appropriate for just bullets. The guideline Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not discusses some things to avoid. For example, any speculation about the future: "Eventually, all carriers will use LTE technology." is an example. State only events that have actually happened, not promotion of something in the future. Put citations after the sentence or paragraph that they support, not on a section head. Use wikilinks on terms with articles, do not put them in bold. Wikipedia is not an "FAQ" so avoid the question/answer format. I would say make it clear in the lead that "4G" is a marketing term, talk in general first, and then have a short summary of deployment history. Technical details go in articles on each standard. W Nowicki (talk) 21:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense - thanks for taking time out to explain to me. Know jumping in deep can sometimes get me into trouble - just got so excited last night as I got going probably should have taken more time to acquaint myself with the official procedures. Have been using it for years, so think my familiarity may have led to overconfidence in my abilities! Will take time to read over the guidelines and bring this into a clearer focus / under all of the requisite standards over the next week or so. Flying9876 (talk) 22:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Last question for now - many sources have indicated that LTE is setting the bar for what 4G is now and will be for a significant amount of time in the U.S. (given bandwidth and political issues). Should I cite wording like "gold standard" or how would it be better to indicate neutrally that it's the best there is? (since that is the accepted viewpoint that it has won the great "4G" battle similar to the beta vs. VHS battle). Flying9876 (talk) 18:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Read the article gold standard. It is a monetary system, and 4G is a phone company marketing term. Use acurate language. "Experts consider LTE to be the gold standard for 4G in the United States now and for the foreseeable future" is cited to a European blog, and never uses the term "gold". This is clearly promotional language, and since the cited source does not support it, might get an editor blocked. Guidelines are to paraphrase reliable independent sources with neutral language. It looks like he is comparing the 2005 version of WiMAX (please spell it right) not the IMT-Advanced version. Someone who makes such a basic confusion is hardly an "expert". As I said above, if you have reliable independent sources that give specific market shares, then cite those with neutral tone. W Nowicki (talk) 21:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Aha - will double check my sources and ensure that it's cleaned up. Thanks for the help. Flying9876 (talk) 21:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

As a follow up - was not meaning to sound promotional. It was to indicate demonstrated excellence of the network -- and the second meaning of gold standard is what I was using [[1]] (Know this is cited incorrectly and will remove shortly). Certainly don't want to be blocked. Flying9876 (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Updated updated Page August 2011

I urge someone to please consider the end-user of this article. People who are technology focused may not realize that this is unintelligible to the majority of readers. While technology may feel more black and white to you, it's just jargon to the average person.

The majority of Google searches for 4G come from the United States [[2]], where they are exposed to 4G in marketing. How many of them is this article helping?

If someone can give me a logical argument as per how the marketing term 4G does not mean the actual word that people use to describe a certain set of experiences, I would love to hear that point of view. The word means what its used to mean. The ITC-U can set technology standards and call them 4G but does not have a copyright on the term nor is it the OED (which actually does chronicle the history of how the meaning of words change). Most of all, the ITC-U and technology enthusiasts who firmly believe this should be the meaning of the term do not have control over how people actually use that term. Since there is a different meaning in use, it deserves to be presented equally.

No one has claimed that the U.S. marketing term 4G means IMT-Advanced. It simply means that the 1) U.S. wireless companies have a lower personal standard for 4G and 2) as such clarification is needed how these experiences differ.

I also think it's unfair to deem the branded section an "advertisement." There are many neutral sources cited there including leading wireless technology industry publications, tech bloggers, and the websites of the companies themselves. Please tell me how this does not fit with a neutral viewpoint. Or what can be added so that it does.

While I understand you perceive your point of view to be "neutral" it's in fact completely biased towards one-side of the argument. Those who are tech-savvy and angry that marketers use the term. And it perpetuates a "myth" that 4G is a "myth" instead of bringing clarity for those who are desperately searching for it.

On a different point entirely--- 4G in early literature is an obviously speculative topic that hardly feels "neutral" and is clearly and opinion. I suggest that section be deleted completely. What source identified this as 4G? Flying9876 (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of the old literature stuff in the end of the article should be removed or sumarized. Sources from before 2007 turned out to be wrong in many aspects in their attempts to define 4G. But deleting sourced text is always controversial and should be thorughly discussed.

This is not about someones personal view. We are in the hands of the sources, so please help us find newer and better ones as a starting point.

You deleted a lot of important stuff and made the lead U.S. centric, but that was reverterted.

Perhaps some engineering details should be moved down from the article lead, but not deleted! Let's not make this into a text only for salesmen. What do you think should be mentioned early, and what should be moved down?

4G is about bit rate, so bit rate discussions should be briefly mentioned in the lead. Standards are also crucial - like the difference between LTE, LTE-advanced, Mobile Wimax and Mobile WImax-advanced.

This spring "real" 4G standards were released, making 1 Gbps possible, thus fulfilling the ITU-R IMT_advanced specifiation. No products and services are however available at this point of time. How do you think the market will differ "real" 4G (1 Gps) from first-relase "4G" (100 Mbps). Based on this background, don't you think a discussion on what qualifies as 4G is important?

There must be better sources than some meeting notes on the acceptance by ITU-R of first-release LTE and mobile-wimax as 4G standards.Mange01 (talk) 19:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is going to need some work. The massive revert by User:Jimthing was another "bold" move I suppose, but did not see any discussion first. At the least, now that IMT-Advanced has been split out, we need to rewrite this article to account for that. And of course update for the -advanced variants of LTE and WiMAX. The lead should summarize the body as well as give context. Except for some details like the last paragraph, the lead not so bad right now, in my opinion, just needs to be updated more to past tense. Avoid saying "currently" because that is guaranteed to become out of date. Perhaps the body could discuss more of the narrative of "generation inflation" in the US for example, in addition to the global view. Permit me to add my personal observation here (of course not in the article!). As an "old timer" I have seen this pattern many times in technology. The first two generations are clear. The third "generation" starts to get a bit fuzzier. Around this time, it often becomes a marketing race and the generations become fairly meaningless. After technologies get established, there is more slow evolution and not wholesale replacements that can be identified as a generation. Note the word broadband itself went through a similar transformation, where by now it is technically meaningless. And by my reading of the IMT-Advanced, bit rate is only one bullet, and the limits sound less precise, just ballpark goals, but that might be a nit. Certainly real-world performance often has little to do with peak rates, but how crowded the cells are, backhauls, MIMO technology, etc. but these technical details belong in the articles on the respective technologies. We just need to compromise and include both summary of the technical points that is up to date, and a neutral discussion of what has actually been deployed (with citations!). I do not have time to do much now, but will be back in a week or so. W Nowicki (talk) 21:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't have much time either - but am going to take another crack at writing something this weekend and will post here before entering anything into it. Will also post things here that are factually incorrect/out of date to see if there's agreement on what should be deleted. Dumb question - any way to see what was up there before it changed without reverting back? I didn't have a copy of the latest elsewhere. Things that feel relevant that were there before (some of which still needed work): third party speed tests of U.S. "4G" networks; development of LTE networks so far; should add a discussion of LTE Advanced as well as a neutral summary on the controversy over 4G (US Carriers vs. Global perspective). Thoughts? Thanks for checking back in W Nowicki, have appreciated your insight here. Flying9876 (talk) 08:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Rewriting the article was a good initative, but User:Jimthings revert was necessary because of reasons I presented above. Feel free to make a new attempt to rewrite the article.

Any suggestions for newer sources? (I have contributed with many of the sources in the article, but I don't have time to search for more right now.)

No. Mentiong of all-IP, OFDMA, MIMO etc, belong to this article because all 4G candidates are based on that - those technologies are what makes it a new technology generation. But these details might be moved down a little bit, and the salesmen/end user perspective moved up. It is as important as pointing out that 1G was based on handover and roaming (as opposed to 0G), 2G was digital, and 3G was based on spread spectrum. These technologies are rather fundamental definitions, and definitions are normally placed in the article lead.

I have also been around awhile. We had the same confusion regarding what qualifies as 3G - but then the standpoints were opposite. At that time, the ITU-R organization said that GSM-Edge was a 3G standard, since it fulfilled the ITM2000 requirement of 200kbps - but no manufacturer or salesman would ever try to sell a GSM phone as 3G. Later, DECT and mobile-wimax were integrated into the 3G (=IMT2000) family of standards, but never branded as 3G.

An even better parallel is IS95 (CdmaOne), which came in 1995, 6-7 years before "real" 3G systems. 3G is often defined as spread spectrum based cellular systems, and IS95 was the first example of this new "technology generation". However, IS95 was never accepted as a 3G/IMT2000 standard by ITU-R, but always considered as a pre-3G-technology. Probably because it came too early. It must be the 11 year sunspot cycle that sets the standard for what qualifies as a mobile generation - a new mobile generation can not come earlier than 10 or 11 after previous one. :) The IS95 story resembles the story of mobile-WiMAX. 4G will probably be defined as an OFDMA based cellular system in future books, and mobile-WiMAX was the first example of that. The IMT2000 3G system is backwards compatible with IS-95, just like the new "advanced" standards are backwards compatible with first-relase LTE and mobile-WiMAX. Mange01 (talk) 16:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

This page is a mess

There are references in the middle of the article. This page is in need of some massive rewrites and clean-up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.40.45 (talk) 16:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, horrible article. I will try and do some work when I get a chance, but this is a big project.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I deleted several old sources (from before IMT-Advanced was decided) speculating about future 4G standards. I also removed lots of repeated text. But much work remains.Mange01 (talk) 16:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I am an old tech familiar with communication protocol theory but this article has me wondering if I actually read anything that means anything! Too many acronymns! The smart cursor tips mostly ony shwo the same three of four letters. Yeah, needs a lot of work for the average reader to even understand te flavour of the article. 99.251.114.120 (talk) 21:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Please provide examples of terms or formulations that need better explanation.

I now turned the article lead into a populistic consumers guide, moving the fundamental IMT-Advanced definition down into the section "Technical definition". But that made the article less encyclopedic, and the lead less durable in time. Can we remove the ugly {{technical}} tophat now?

English is not my native language, so please improve the language someone. Mange01 (talk) 20:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

4G sucks for voice?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/02/feature_wtf_is_voice_over_lte_4g/ How are the UK's mobile network operators going to handle voice calls when they switch on their 4G LTE networks? Possibly not very well.

Seems RS to me. Add it or too speculative? Hcobb (talk) 02:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

4G explained easily

4G can be easily defined as the latest standard in Mobile internet connectivity providing users with larger bandwidths then 3G meaning faster download and upload speeds.

As an example of how that would benefit the user on a 4G connection the time it would take to download a movie from iTunes ( for example ) is much quicker and now due to the increase in bandwidth users can watch TV and movies via a 4G connection without the need to download saving time and money, this service is know as streaming.

References

[4G News] [[http://www.4gwifi.co The 4G Wifi Company

HSPA+ AND HSPA ARE NOT 4G!

Can I delete all references wrongly stating that HSPA is 4G? Someone reading this article might think that Argentina has a 4G network since 2011 and that's not true at all! HSPA and HSPA+ are 3G technology. MarcosPassos (talk) 15:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

4G definition confusion

Should we mention the confusion about the iOS 5.1 update that just cahnged the "3G" icon to one that said "4G"? (See http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57393828-266/has-ios-5.1-turned-the-iphone-4s-into-a-4g-device-overnight/) If no one has any complaints, I'll probably add this soon. Wesleyac (talk) 06:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Copyvio

I've removed the following text from 'Multiplexing and access schemes', as it was a copyvio of this source: "The Migration to 4G standards incorporates elements of many early technologies and many solutions use code (a cypher), frequency or time as the basis of multiplexing the spectrum more efficiently. While Spectrum is considered finite, Cooper's Law has shown that we have developed more efficient ways of using spectrum just as the Moore's law has shown our ability to increase processing." — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 12:30, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Free 4G forever connection by Ooredoo Qatar

Qatar's leading communication chain ooredoo made 4G free for Mobile users.It has listed some devices which supports 4G.It's absolutely free.

Source : http://www.ooredoo.qa/en/smart — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hellrules (talk • contribs) 12:06, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

When Phones Switch from 4G to 3G

What is actually happening when a Smart Phone Switches and Tells you it is running 3G, when it is considered a 4G phone ? When you buy a 4G capable phone are you still susceptible to area with only 3G Bandwidth – — Preceding unsigned comment added by DEW1012 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

You probably bought a Smartphone which capable of the wrong frequencies. When the device is switching networks it's called handover. MrCellular (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Data Rate Chart Sorting

The sorting on the chart by speed does not work correctly. If you sort by upstream or downstream speed, the chart puts entries in an almost random-seeming order. I have no idea how to fix this.149.152.60.253 (talk) 14:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Huh?

"Two 4G candidate systems are commercially deployed"

Speak English — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:8500:982:D184:8B97:800F:74A6 (talk) 01:17, 8 April 2015 (UTC)