Ericsson speaks about the future of 4G wireless

The chief technology Officer for Ericsson has recently responded to questions about the future of 4G wireless, which is something that many mobile providers are now looking into.

With mobile broadband already a huge hit, many mobile operators are now thinking towards the future, which is 4G technology. Two different technologies are battling over 4G, and this is WiMax, which was developed by Intel, and LTE, which has been promoted by the mobile industry.

In a recent interview the chief technology officer for mobile giant Ericsson, John Cunliffe, was asked a number of questions. One question asked by the interviewer was: “We are now being told that it has fought off the challenge from mobile WiMax — unless you know something different?” To this he replied: “I would concur. But there are places where WiMax is appropriate We don’t build WiMax products — we decided not to because we think it is going to be a minority market. We install it, though; in the UK we are installing WiMax for Freedom4 (formerly Pipex). WiMax is simply a radio technology, so networks need backhaul and core network, plus equipment for authentication, authorisation and accounting, as well as the base stations.”

When asked how fast LTE would be he said: “We’ve been doing some drive testing in Sweden with mobile clients. We were getting a peak of 154Mbps, a mean of 78Mbps and a minimum of 16Mbps download speeds.” He was also asked when LTE is going to happen, and responded: “There will be trials before the end of this year, and base stations ready for commercial service before the end of next . These will be multi-standard. The RBS 6000 we launched at Mobile World Congress this year will do 2G, 3G and LTE.”

Another question that he was asked by the interviewer was “What will happen with 3G and HSPA, while we wait for LTE?” To this Cunliffe said: “There is a roadmap for HSPA. We have 7.2Mbps in the UK at the moment, coverage is good and plenty of handsets do it. With high levels of modulation like 64QAM and Mimo, we can get 42Mbps out of HSPA… and even 80Mbps with further optimisation. It is now being promoted as an alternative to Wi-Fi. It is easier to set up, and has roaming. New dongles don’t even need a CD — the software’s built-in, in flash.”