4G standards refer to the shared specifications used with fourth-generation mobile telecommunications technology. Their purpose is to allow mobile phones and cellular networks to interact based on a common set of features. Multiple competing standards have emerged and evolved throughout that generation’s development. LTE and WiMAX (or IEEE 802.16) families include the most widely used 4G standards, though they face competition from others like HSPA+. This paper examines the capabilities of LTE-A, the latest iteration of LTE, within the context of other 4G standards.
LTE-A stands for Long-Term Evolution Advanced, a version of LTE updated to meet the International Telecommunication Union’s official IMT-Advanced standard. Its primary distinguishing feature compared to its predecessors is its increased speed, with the current version offering a peak download rate of over 3 Gb/s (Djordjevic, 2018, p. 548). By contrast, LTE-A’s principal rival IEEE 802.16 m has a 100 Mb/s data rate for mobile and 1 Gb/s for stationary reception (Djordjevic, 2018, p. 4). Despite improvements, HSPA+ remains a third-generation system as far as its speed is concerned. LTE-A’s speed is achieved through a coordinated multipoint transmission system, with 8-layer MIMO signal processing and a 128-QAM format (Djordjevic, 2018). Unlike WiMAX, LTE-A uses fixed frequency bands, increasing its security and reliability. It also has a wider service area than any of its competitors due to the support of major telecommunications companies. Though its rivals have their niches, LTE-A’s advantages give it a decisive edge in mobile telecommunications.
Despite the arrival of 5G networks, 4G technology is likely to remain in widespread use for the near future. Having been painstakingly refined over many years, it has attained a high level of sophistication and flexibility. LTE-A represents one of the pinnacles of this technology’s accomplishments and a historically important step towards 5G. Its main advantages are its reliability, security, and speed, supported by an original coordinated multipoint transmission system. Combined with institutional support from telecommunications service providers and manufacturers, those advantages have made LTE-A a dominant fourth-generation standard.
References
Djordjevic, I. B. (2018). Advanced optical and wireless communications systems. Springer.