Business Grade 4G LTE Broadband for Work at Home

By: John Shepler

All of a sudden, everybody is working from home… or at least trying to. One of the big challenges is trying to get enough high speed, low latency bandwidth into a remote business or home office instantly. The more isolated your location, the tougher it gets. Well, thanks to the wide coverage of 4G LTE cellular broadband and high performance modem/routers, you can get the bandwidth you need fast, at low cost and with no long term commitment. Does that sound interesting?

The Secret is Wireless
Forget having wires or, worse, fiber run to your location. That’s not going to happen fast and it might cost you a small fortune in construction fees plus a multi-year commitment. For a situation that may only last a few months to a year, it’s tough to take on a contract like that. Fortunately, you don’t have to.

Wireless broadband is now just about everywhere with any population at all. Can you get a decent cell phone signal? Then you are pretty much assured of having broadband Internet access. The cellular phone system started out as a replacement for voice-grade landlines, but has morphed into a broadband Internet service that also supports phone calls. The current widely deployed iteration is 4G LTE. Signals are strong and bandwidth is similar to many cable services. All you really need is a way to connect.

Instant Desktop Broadband
Here’s a little secret that I use to backup my own cable broadband. Your iPhone will act as a personal hotspot. Just turn that feature on, select that network name on your desktop WiFi and enter the password the phone gives you. Voila! Your desktop computer in on the Internet. No wires needed.

This works great for short term outages, but if you are going to use this service day after day, there is always the nasty issue of data limits. You may have 20 GB on your wireless plan, but typical monthly use is more like 250 GB. Your cellular plan won’t cut it for the long term. You need something designed for business.

Business Grade Wireless
Instead of a cell phone, you need something that looks more like a WiFi router but with 4G LTE driving it instead of DSL or Cable. These are made by companies like CradlePoint with service from business broadband providers like For2Fi.

A single box has a 4G LTE modem with antennas and a WiFi signal router. Some models include firewalls, Ethernet ports, and even Power over Ethernet (PoE). Unlike a cell phone, you can add an external antenna to boost the signal in areas with weak coverage.

Enterprise Grade Service
Would unlimited usage (subject to 300 GB acceptable use policy) at 20 to 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload with low latency and low packet loss work for you?

You will be able to do the usual web browsing and email, but also video conferencing, file collaboration, teams and unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

But what does this cost? It’s about what you’d pay for business grade cable broadband and likely less than a 1.5 Mbps T1 line (sometimes the only other solution in rural areas). That’s with no contract. You just pay as long as you use the service.

For businesses that are really on a budget, there is also a basic plan with 1, 5, and 10 GB plans at a bargain rate. If you go over the limit, you pay a fee per GB used.

Are you faced with having to suddenly support a scattered workforce with no time to install the usual connections and in locations that might not even support high speed wireline or fiber installations? Get up and running in days, not months with a flexible enterprise grade wireless broadband solution. Use the handy online form or call toll free 888-848-8749 now.

Broadband for the Bandwidth Starved

By: John Shepler

To say that we live in a connected society sounds like belaboring the obvious. It’s seems clear that everyone, and especially everyone in business, has pretty much claimed their piece of the bandwidth pie. But… not so fast. We’re not ALL connected the way we need to be. There are pockets of broadband wasteland out there that are still starved for bandwidth. If you find yourself in this situation, what hope is there?

Yes, Virginia, There IS Broadband
Earlier in the century, there were islands of broadband access and vast areas where dial-up access was all that was available. That situation has pretty much reversed. Today, there is almost nowhere you can’t get at least some broadband Internet access. It’s just a question of what type of broadband service is available and how much you are going to pay.

Fiber Optic - The Cadillac of Bandwidth
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We’re heading toward an almost all-fiber world. There really isn’t anything else that has the capacity of glass fiber strands. Try sending 10 Gbps down a copper pair. That’s only going to happen within a building. That signal is certainly not going to make it across town. The same 10 Gbps is child’s play for fiber. One strand with one laser can provide that bandwidth. You can easily multiply that by 10 to 100 times using WDM or Wavelength Division Multiplexing.

Fiber Everywhere?
You might think it’s fiber, fiber everywhere and not drop to drink. Actually, it might be not a drop to be had. Fiber really is everywhere. That long country road? There’s a good chance there’s fiber buried in the utility right of way. Highways, railroads and pipelines are popular routes for fiber conduit. The reason most of this fiber is invisible is because there are few drops, or places to connect with all that fiber.

That’s changing. What’s happening is that both consumer and business applications have become more bandwidth intensive. The cloud? You don’t dial-up into the cloud. You better have a decent bandwidth connection or you’ll wish you kept those servers at home.

The Fiber - Mobile Connection
Another big driver is mobile broadband. Feature phones are pretty much extinct. Everybody has an iPhone or an Android. Now they’ve got to have a 4G LTE smartphone. The latest apps and streaming content demand 10, 20 or 30 Mbps of bandwidth. In the future, even that capacity will seem like dial-up.

What’s fiber got to do with mobile? What gets transmitted from the towers has to get to the towers in the first place. That’s where fiber comes in. The T1 lines that have traditionally fed 2G and 3G cellular don’t have the capacity for 4G and the 5G to come. Carriers have long since realized this and have have been in a building frenzy to get fiber to the towers. In-town that’s no big deal. Out in the boonies? It’s a major construction project. No matter, there is a lot of fiber going in the ground and connecting to cell towers here, there and everywhere.

The end result is two-fold. One, wireless broadband speeds are going up like crazy (wireless is becoming the fiber for portable and mobile applications). The other benefit is that the actual fiber is becoming available in many, many more locations.

What Fiber is Available?
The ancient standard in fiber optic connectivity is called SONET. It’s far from obsolete, since many if not most long haul networks run over SONET rings. SONET makes a great backbone, but it’s often not the best connectivity for business.

The newer standard is called Carrier Ethernet. It’s an extension of the Ethernet that runs on your LAN. Because they are on the same technical standard, you simply plug your LAN into the Carrier Ethernet WAN and your network connects across town, to another state or around the world. Connect to the Internet using fiber and you have high speed access to your employees, suppliers and customers.

Carrier Ethernet comes in two flavors. Ethernet over Copper is the low speed standard. It runs on twisted pair copper and is good for 10 Mbps or so. Ethernet over Fiber starts at 10 Mbps and goes up to 10 Gbps and beyond. That’s the advantage of fiber Ethernet. It’s pretty hard to run out of bandwidth no matter how big your company grows.

Another advantage is scalability. You can start out at 10 Mbps and go to 100 Mbps or 1000 Gbps any time you want. The fiber can handle it. If you install a fast enough port, chances are that you won’t even have to replace equipment. Just call your provider and request a bandwidth increase.

What If There Still Is No Fiber?
Don’t write off fiber until you’ve gotten a new set of quotes. The fiber footprint for every carrier is changing daily. Just because you got turned down last year doesn’t mean you are still in the middle of nowhere. But… sometimes you still are.

For smaller or less bandwidth demanding businesses, such as small retailers and some farms and ranches, the trusty T1 line may still get the job done. You get a solid 1.5 Mbps up and down. That’s certainly good enough for email, much casual web browsing, and even online ordering. Video? Not so much. But, maybe that isn’t your critical need.

The beauty of T1 lines is that they are available nearly everywhere you can get a landline phone. They can also be bonded to double or triple your bandwidth. In some cases, 10 Mbps is entirely possible. That’s about the limit. Prices per line are a fraction of what they used to be, so you might find T1 is your most affordable option.

Can We Ditch The Wires?
Wireless is also more of an option than it used to be. Those same cell towers that are powering 4G smartphones can also feed a fixed receiver at your location that will give you broadband over your LAN. Today, most businesses are within good signal range of at least one cell tower.

For a lot of applications, bandwidth won’t be your problem. Usage will be. Wireless is a scarce resource, so even the so called “unlimited” plans have “fair usage” limits. If you go over, you’ll pay overage charges or have your service rate limited or cut off. Even so, many businesses are still not Internet-intensive and can get their online jobs done without going over, say, 10 GB per month.

Bird Is The Word
If you are so out in the woods that nothing else will work, there’s always satellite. Yes, you do need to be able to peek through the trees to see the southern sky. Yes, you do need to power the satellite equipment. If neither of those is a big problem, you can get broadband service for sure.

Satellite broadband used to be something of a joke. Bandwidth was pitiful and usage limits were paltry. Newer generations of bigger, higher power satellites have made a lot of those problems go away. You can get decent broadband levels, although nowhere near fiber capability. Still, 5 to 15 Mbps is reasonable for many businesses. Like cellular, there are usage limits on satellite and 10 GB per month is not untypical, although there are higher usage plans available. Once again, this is for web access and email, not video streaming.

The other issue you should be aware of is latency. The big birds are flying some 23,000 miles up there and it takes even a radio wave a half-second or more to get up, down and back again. Latencies of 500 mSec to 1 Sec or more mean that telephone calls over satellite are more like two-way radio conversations. You have to wait your turn. The same is true for video conferencing. Expect other cloud services to be similarly sluggish over geosynchronous satellite broadband.

What Flavor of Broadband Will Satisfy Your Bandwidth Appetite?
Options available to many locations include fiber, T1, cellular wireless and satellite. One of these should be usable for your applications. In many cases, you have more than one choice. Sometimes even cable broadband or high speed fixed point to point fixed wireless service are additional options. How do you know what’s available? It starts with a no-obligation quote from multiple service providers that you can request in just a minute or so.



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How The Cloud Is Making Obsolescence Obsolete

Managing technology is a lot like trying to swim upstream. Stop for even a breather and you start getting dragged backwards. Wait too long and you look up to see all your competitors way upstream while you’re moving downstream toward the waterfall.

This is the thing about technology. It’s moving like that stream. As soon as you buy any device or any system, it is already going obsolete. The longer you use it as-is, the farther out of date it gets. At some point you find that what you have is no longer being supported or that it only partially works anymore. Oh, the hardware is just as good as the day you bought it. The problem is that you can’t access the latest resources or that your perfectly functional hardware platform hasn’t got the horsepower to use the most up to date software.

We’ve went through this for a generation with the PC. Every few months, the next model came out with more RAM and a faster processor. Everybody talked about how many Mbps and then Gbps their CPU clocked. My first PC was an 8-bitter that could only address 64 KB of RAM. Wow, did I feel powerful when I got all the memory sockets loaded with that much memory. That euphoria lasted until the 16 bit machines hit the market and raised the bar from KB to MB. Now, memory is in GB and disk storage is in TB and processor speeds have flattened out around 2 Gbps, with more processors on-board to increase throughput.

Have you noticed that things have slowed down a bit in the PC wars? The machine you buy this year isn’t necessarily going to have 5x or 10x the number of cores as last year’s machine. You won’t be moving up from 2 GB to 10GB or 100GB of RAM any time soon. Anybody entertaining the necessity of a 10 or 100 TB hard drive on their desktop?

What’s happening is that the battle is moving to another front. PCs, tablets, smartphones, and laptops & notebooks are at the point where they can support what you need to do with a shift in the model of how its done. Software is on the way out, apps are on the way in. Overreaching all of this is doing everything remotely in the cloud.

Shifting the center of activity from the PC or other device to the cloud doesn’t reduce the computing or storage requirements. It just shifts them to a central point where they are easier to provision and maintain. Your local computing device becomes a computing device in name only. The bulk of the work is being done elsewhere. You simply need the resources to properly display and interact with the system in the cloud.

The battle that is going on right now is the battle for bandwidth. Connectivity is the new choke point. Whatever near-infinite capacity the cloud has doesn’t do you any good if you can’t get to it. Your Internet, SIP trunk or dedicated line service has to have the capacity to become transparent in the process. As long as you can perceive a latency or congestion in the path to the cloud, everything will run no faster than this weakest link.

Bandwidth, particularly mobile bandwidth, is what has cloud services stymied and both carriers and the FCC in a near-panic. It is starting to dawn on individuals and companies alike that the cloud is the place to compute everything, store everything, access everything, and even do functions like telephone switching. If the cloud service provider takes care of maintenance, updates and provisioning capacity, you can get out of the business of technology management. No more worrying about upgrades, patches or adding hardware resources. It’s all being handled invisibly behind the scenes in the cloud. Now, if only we could get to the cloud.

The wireless bandwidth issue is going to be on a steep learning curve for a long time. The near term solution will be a mass migration to LTE and its advanced versions. It’s going to be years before everybody has enough bandwidth available that they stop fretting over how much bandwidth they have available. Carriers will bring fiber to the cell towers as fast as they can get it installed. The FCC will divert bandwidth to the wireless industry as fast as they can pry it loose from other services, even if that means paying license holders to sell their claims for auction.

For many businesses, the connectivity issue isn’t that dire. Bonded T1, Ethernet over Copper, Ethernet over Fiber and SONET fiber optical services are more available than ever and much lower in cost per Mbps than only a few years ago. If you are eyeing the cloud with the thought that you’d be better off with hosted services than trying to keep up with managing all the technology yourself, you’ll be happy to know that getting there is a lot easier and less expensive than you might expect.

Fixed Wireless Moving To 4G

There are a couple of faces to fixed wireless broadband for business. First is the licensed microwave services that you’ll find downtown in major cities. The coverage is limited to a few thousand feet with strict line of sight requirements. Bandwidth is high, but availability is very limited.

The other approach is to piggy-back on the 3G cellular broadband services that already blanket the country. This approach offers lower bandwidth, similar to a T1 line, but is available just about anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. That has made it perfect for rural locations, temporary stores and small businesses that need a broadband connection fast.

Accel Networks has been a leader in 3G fixed wireless in the United States and Canada. Their winning approach has been in contracting with multiple wireless providers and creating a proprietary hardware solution that is plug-and-play for the user. Your equipment package comes pre-programmed for the optimal carrier signal available at your location. The Maestro antenna system ensures a solid RF link. All you need to do is connect to the serial or Ethernet connection and you are ready to go in as little as 3 days from order placement.

What do you get in the way of performance. You have a static or dynamic IP address on a PCI compliant private Layer 2 connection. Typical 3G data rates average 1 Mbps download by 512 Kbps upload. A service level agreement assures you of 99.9% availability. Coverage includes 99% of all retail locations in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

As good as 3G fixed wireless is, businesses are pressing for more bandwidth. Fixed wireless providers are following the cellular upgrade path from 3G to 4G as it is fielded. Accel Networks has launched their 4G service with a proprietary antenna and embedded modem technology. Speeds are expected to increase to 6 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload with under 100 mSec of latency.

How long until you can upgrade from 3G to 4G? The industry changeover is expected to be completed within the next two years. It will depend on where you are located as to how quickly you can install 4G fixed wireless broadband.

If you’ve been following the consumer smartphone upgrades from 3G to 4G, you know that there are a competing technologies. The ultimate is LTE (Long Term Evolution), a GSM technology that looks like it will become the universal standard. That includes a switchover for CDMA carriers like Verizon. In the mean time, carriers are performing intermediate upgrades to their existing networks to squeeze out a little more bandwidth. Why? It’s quite expensive to install new circuit cards in every cellular base station to change the technology of the signals being transmitted. Simple evolutionary upgrades often involve only a software upgrade to existing hardware. T-Mobile is taking this approach with an upgrade from HSPA to HSPA+ prior to full deployment of LTE.

The other limitation to higher speed cellular deployment is backhaul. This is the connection between the cell tower and the centralized switching equipment. Up till recently, T1 lines were used for cellular backhaul. They offer 1.5 Mbps in both upload and download directions and are both highly reliable and available anywhere twisted pair telephone wire exists. That’s just about everywhere, including out in the boonies. Bonding T1 lines can increase bandwidth by adding two, four, six or more T1 lines in parallel. That’s good to about 12 Mbps. After that, you need either microwave backhaul or fiber optic connection.

Fiber optic is the way to go if at all possible. The bandwidth is nearly unlimited and you only pay for the construction costs once. The problem is that there are several hundred thousand cell towers sites that need to be upgraded to fiber. In remote locations, fiber is nowhere nearby and needs to be brought-in. Even in the cities, there is a cost and time involved to upgrade each cell. That, plus the cost of the hardware and labor for site just to switch to LTE limits how fast the carriers can move. Even so, cellular broadband is so lucrative that billion dollar investments will continue to flow until the job is completed.

Will fixed wireless work for your business situation? If so, prices are very attractive for both 3G and 4G fixes wireless broadband solutions. Check pricing and availability to see if you really need those landline connections after all.

The Next Decade of Bandwidth - Part IV

It won’t be long until wireless broadband has commandeered all the spectrum it can between a few hundred and a few thousand MHz. These are seen by the industry as being the most desirable frequencies. They offer high bandwidth capacity, good penetration into buildings and small antennas. Unfortunately, there are only so many of these channels available. Just like in real estate, when all the best locations are bought up expansion continues into whatever is available.

Going up or down the electromagnetic spectrum in search of more broadband capacity has its challenges. As you go down in frequency, up in wavelength, channels have to be proportionally larger to get the same carrying capacity. A 1 MHz channel at 10 GHz seems small. A 1 MHz channel at 10 MHz eats up a huge chunk of that band. At 1 MHz, there would only be room for a single 1 MHz channel.

One way to deal with this is to divvy up your transmissions into hundreds or thousands of smaller channels. This is the principle behind OFDM or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. The system generates an array of carriers spaced out across the available spectrum. Each carrier transmits only a portion of the data. When those pieces are combined at the far end, you have a single continuous transmission again.

OFDM is the system used for BPL or Broadband over Power Line Internet services. It uses the shortwave frequencies, with some carriers omitted to avoid interference with other services. By using many, many small channels instead of one big one, any packet losses are small and easily replaced. It also offers a way to fit a wireless service into a band that doesn’t have big open chunks of spectrum. Just use the channels you can and combine a bunch of them to create a larger bandwidth service.

BPL may not be going anywhere because other wireline and wireless services are more cost effective competitors. WiMAX uses OFDM, as do LTE, WiFi and digital radio broadcasting. Seems like there is no reason a wireless equivalent of BPL couldn’t be deployed to use available lower frequencies that haven’t been previously considered for broadband use.

Going up the spectrum in frequency is also challenging. The higher you go, the more line of sight transmission becomes. The Ku band that broadcast satellites use from 12 to 18 GHz has lots of capacity, but not much ability to penetrate obstacles. Even tree leaves will interrupt service, as will a heavy rain. Wireless point to point transmissions in the Super and Extremely High Frequency bands is via outdoor antennas within line of sight.

That’s the state of the art today, but does it need to be so limited? Perhaps someone will come up with a way to flood areas with many very low power cells to ensure that a mobile antenna can receive a signal no matter where it travels. That same idea is being put to use now with mesh networks consisting of WiFi radios. Each WiFi hotspot communicates with the radios nearby to share traffic, so you don’t need backhaul connections to a central controller.

This idea of mesh networks with low power transmissions and short range coverage has application for even higher parts of the spectrum. Above 300 GHz, electromagnetic waves start to be called infrared light waves. Infrared light is the carrier used in fiber optic cables. You can eliminate the fiber and use infrared beams from point to point, as long as you have a direct line of sight. This is called free space optical transmission. With enough emitters and receivers connected in a mesh network, you can create a very high capacity network with decent coverage.

In Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV, we’ve seen how wireless broadband has a near insatiable need for bandwidth and how that may be satisfied by reassignment of desirable channels and more efficient use of underutilized frequencies up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. In the fifth and final part of this series on the next decade of bandwidth, we’ll take a look at wired connections that include both copper and fiber to see what else is in store for business bandwidth.

Is your business running short on bandwidth or simply looking to get a better deal? See what's available for your business location in the way of T-carrier and Ethernet copper, SONET and Ethernet fiber, fixed wireless and Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC). Get instant bandwidth pricing up to 1 Gbps and fast quotes on other services.

4G Wireless Broadband Options

Wireless broadband is on an upward path to take over many of the applications that have long been the domain of wireline technologies. Wireless has the convenience of portability and mobility. What’s held back deployment and more powerful applications is the limited availability and speed of wireless connections. The move to 4G wireless looks to be a potential solution.

4G or fourth generation wireless doesn’t have a strict definition, but it is roughly stated as the bandwidth typical of Cable broadband or Ethernet over Copper business connections. With this level of transmission speed and a city-wide reach, 4G wireless can take over service for desktop as well as mobile devices.

One might throw WiFi into the 4G category. The bandwidth for a, b, g, and n WiFi technologies fall into the right bandwidth category. However, WiFi is a short distance system. It works well within and nearby particular locations, such as homes, offices, restaurants, hotels, airports and even park benches. But you can’t get in your car and drive away with a WiFi connection. It will disappear as soon as you leave the parking lot. In a way, WiFi is more of a PAN or Personal Area Network like Bluetooth.

The higher power wireless technologies, including 2G & 3G are associated with cellular phone service. These are based on using networks of fixed transmitters and receivers arranged as cells with signals that fill-in the coverage between towers. The trick of turning this system into a metropolitan or wide area network is to coordinate the handoff of an existing wireless connection as the user moves from cell to cell.

The most popular wireless technology right now is 3G. It offers bandwidths similar to T1 lines and basic DSL of around 1.5 Mbps on average in metropolitan areas. You may get two or more times this speed if you happen to be near a tower with few users. This is more than adequate for many mobile uses, such as Web browsing, email and viewing video clips on smartphone screens.

Beyond limited speed, 3G also suffers from limited bandwidth availability. It shares channels with cellular telephone on the same towers. Those channels were originally sized to support expected voice traffic. They’ve been overwhelmed by the higher bandwidth requirements of Internet data traffic. That’s why carriers are so insistent on bandwidth caps.

There are a couple of different approaches to 4G wireless. The one taken by the cell phone companies is to view 4G as an upgrade to their 3G systems. There are two differing cellular system that co-exist. One is a US-centric system called CDMA that is used by Verizon, Sprint and others. The other is a more global standard called GSM that is used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

Right now, AT&T and T-Mobile have upgraded their 3G networks to a faster version of the same thing called HSPA+ that delivers up to 6 to 8 Mbps. Verizon has moved to a 4G technology called LTE that offers downloads of 5 to 12 Mbps. Sprint has gone with another 4G technology called WiMAX that delivers downloads in the 3 to 6 Mbps speed range.

As wireless continues to evolve, 4G is expected to move into two camps. LTE is the technology most discussed as a truly universal standard. WiMAX deployment actually predated LTE and has installations worldwide. Both LTE and WiMAX have technical upgrade paths that can boost download speeds to over 100 Mbps and even 1000 Mbps. This is competitive with many fiber services and ensures that 4G wireless will be with us for a long time.

One thing we’re also seeing with 4G wireless is the use of lower frequency bands that can more easily penetrate buildings. These bands came from the re-deployment of those channels from UHF TV as part of a federal auction. Clear offers 4G fixed and mobile wireless service with a telephone option over WiMAX in over 80 cities nationwide. Right now, this service offers unlimited broadband service.

MiFi Points The Way to Wireless Transition

Verizon Wireless just made an amazing announcement. They will be selling the Apple iPad in their stores. But aren’t Apple and AT&T exclusive partners? Indeed. So, why is Verizon selling a product that won’t work on their network? ...Or will it?

Yes, it will. How Verizon accomplished this clever feat of engineering points the way to the future of wireless broadband. Actually, not the future future. Just the immediate future. Call it the era of wireless transition.

Wireless technology has pretty much developed along two lines. One is the telecom carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. There are other players in the cellular wireless game, but they are simply private branded versions of the big four within the US. What characterizes the major carriers is that their offerings are proprietary. What works on AT&T won’t work on Verizon Wireless, and vice versa.

The other wireless path is an industry standard known a WiFi. It comes in flavors such as a, b, g, and n. But unlike telecom carrier services there is enough commonality and backwards compatibility that pretty much any WiFi device will work on pretty much any wireless router, hotspot or access point.

What Verizon has cleverly done is marry the two lines. They can’t get into the iPad through the front door, so the come in the back door. How? Very simple. They use an interface device to convert cellular to WiFi. That device is the MiFi. The Verizon MiFi is a little box about the size of a pack of cards. Inside is a cellular radio, a WiFi radio, a battery and some circuitry to make it all work. All you do is push a button to turn it on and the converter works automatically. It allows up to 5 wireless devices to gain access to the Verizon 3G wireless network as if they were Verizon-enabled to begin with.

The Verizon iPad will consist of an Apple iPad and a Verizon MiFi bundled together. They are separate pieces of equipment, but the MiFi will slip into your pocket or bag so it isn’t intrusive. At first blush, it may seem like having to carry around two pieces of equipment instead of just one is a big disadvantage for Verizon compared to AT&T. But Verizon may get the last laugh after all. The MiFi provides 3G connectivity for your iPad, but it also provides 3G connectivity for your other devices that don’t have their own 3G service built-in. That includes your laptop computer, netbook, games, and even your Apple iPod. If you had to buy separate 3G service for each device, you’d go broke. But one MiFi can serve whatever gadgets need connectivity, as long as they are WiFi enabled.

Verizon isn’t the only one with a MiFi. Novatel, maker of the MiFi, offers an unlocked version for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. There’s a MiFi specifically for Virgin Mobile. Sprint goes one further with their Sierra Wireless Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot. It works on both the Sprint 3G Mobile Broadband network and its 4G WiMAX network. CLEAR offers a similar 3G/4G converter called Clear Spot.

Even these converters are transitional technology. Smartphones, starting with the Droid X by Motorola and Samsung Epic, have the cellular to WiFi hotspot capability built-in. This is likely to become a standard feature on smartphone designs, as WiFi and Bluetooth are the industry standard wireless technologies. WiFi has the greater transmission range.

Down the road a few years, the tide of wireless seems to be going in the direction of standardizing on LTE as a 4G standard. Cellular phone may give way to VoIP over LTE. At that point it will be hard to tell the difference between a mobile phone, a smartphone and a digital device like a tablet computer. Perhaps a single smart radio chip will provide universal wireless connectivity. Just pick your carrier and sign up for a service plan after you buy the device. The wireless transition era will be complete.

What is 4G and Why Do You Want It?

You see ads for 3G cell phones and wireless modem aircards. Now here comes 4G. What is this advance in technology all about and why should you want it now?

2G, 3G, 4G. All those G’s, what do they mean? What we’re talking about is a shorthand for the generations of wireless broadband service. It’s been advancing so fast that it’s not unusual for different generations of service to be available in the same area. That’s by design. If you are in a weak service area for 3G, then your device will automatically seek out a lower speed service such as 2.5G or 2G. You won’t get as high a bandwidth, but at least you’ll be connected.

Wireless broadband is generally a companion service to cellular telephone. It uses the same towers and base stations. Coverage areas are pretty much the same. The exception is when a particular tower site hasn’t yet been upgraded to the latest cellular broadband generation. In that case, you’ll get a lower level of service until you move into the coverage of a cell tower that is at the latest standard.

I should mention here that there are two wireless broadband services that have nothing to do with cell phones. One is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider that offers home and business broadband. You need to be within line of site of their tower and install an outdoor antenna on your roof. These WISPs are pretty much locally owned an operated, and generally serve locations that aren’t wired for DSL or Cable.

The other non-cellular wireless service is the WiFi hotspot. There are so many of them, that they could almost form a cellular-like network of their own. That hasn’t happened because hotspots are also largely local services, mostly offered by restaurants and hotels. There’s no network to tie them together, so once you leave a hotspot you have to log into another one at your next stop.

That’s where 4G steps in. Imagine that you are connected to a 4G service and are reading a document while parked in your car. You can go into a client’s office or your own and you’ll still be on the same service. The idea of 4G is to blanket a city with a signal strong enough that you have high bandwidth connectivity without worrying about where you are located.

But doesn’t 3G do that? To some extent, yes. But 4G has the advantage of higher bandwidths. With the 4G service that is available today using the WiMAX standard, you can get 3 to 6 Mbps on a normal basis, with bursts of to 10 Mbps.

WiMAX 4G is also not limited to mobile service the way that 2G and 3G are. It’s designed for both desktop and mobile service. That puts this 4G network in a class by itself. You can get a WiMAX modem for your desktop computer and a plug-in 4G aircard for your laptop computer. You’ll have the same service at your desk as you do on the road. There are even 4G phones coming out sometime this summer that look to become a game changer in the wireless service industry.

There are two standards that will dominate 4G service. One is LTE which will be deployed later this year and through 2011. The other is WiMAX broadband that is available now in many cities and states. Find out if your location qualifies for 4G wireless broadband
now.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

The Fiber Gold Rush Is On

We’ve known for some time that ultimately we’d need to move from copper wires to fiber optic strands to get the bandwidth we’ll need as technology advances. Internet service providers, Cable TV companies, medical centers, telephone switching offices and major corporations have gradually embraced this move over the last couple of decades. New services, such as Metro Ethernet, have made fiber optic connections affordable for even mid-size companies. Small businesses and consumers are now getting their turn.

Indeed, there has been one company that saw the light, so to speak, on fiber to the home and made the commitment to build out the infrastructure. That’s Verizon. Their FiOS passive optical fiber service has been moving into one community after another as a replacement for DSL, Satellite, and Cable. You can get bundles of phone, Internet and TV. Or, you can just get really fast Internet service at up to 50 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload.

Did I say really fast internet service? Most people are getting somewhere between 3 and 10 Mbps broadband via DSL, Cable or wireless. But DOCSIS 3.0 is being rolled out on Comcast and other cable systems with 50 Mbps service offerings to rival fiber. The next tier will be 100 Mbps for those who can and will pay for it. DSL over copper telephone wire is going to struggle as the bandwidth wars speed past 100 Mbps. But there’s a new service on the horizon that will blow right past all of these broadband choices. It’s a 1 Gbps fiber optic service about to be launched as a pilot program by none other than Google.

Yes, some lucky consumers in the test markets are going to get their hands on the kind of bandwidth that makes IT managers green with envy. A Gigabit per second. That’s 1000 Mbps. There’s nothing over coaxial or twisted pair copper and certainly nothing wireless that can even come close to delivering that kind of consumer bandwidth. Even Verizon may have to change out a lot of terminal equipment to pump a Gbps into home networks.

Google swears that they are not planning to become a nationwide ISP. Their intention is to create an environment that can showcase the next developments in technology. What sort of cloud computing, virtual reality, telepresence, or HD 3D video applications need that kind of bandwidth? They’re yet to appear. But this does get past the chicken and egg conundrum, where application development stagnates because of bandwidth limitations and only cutting edge aficionados pony up for the top tiers in broadband service. Google plans to make their service cheap and plentiful so that even the common user can have a crack at this massive bandwidth connectivity.

ISP or not, it’s almost a sure bet that Google will prime the pump with some of their own cutting edge experimental apps. There’s probably all sorts of cool things brewing in the lab that just aren’t practical to launch on today’s broadband networks. Once the bottle’s open and the genies start flying out, you can bet that the development communities will fall all over themselves to get their own offerings out for evaluation.

This pitiful era of a bandwidth starved United States is about to end. That’s exceptionally good news for anyone living out in the boonies who’s stuck with dial-up, or paying a goodly price for satellite broadband and swearing at the latency. Google is, perhaps, the last straw in forcing universal fiber optic connections to the premises. Right now, smart telephone and cable companies are grabbing federal stimulus financing to trench fiber everywhere it isn’t already. It’s more than just serving the populations in low density areas who need and deserve better broadband. Another driving factor is the burgeoning wireless bandwidth demand to support smartphones, such as the iPhone and Droid. The cellular sites are bandwidth limited by the copper lines they have for backhaul. They are going to need fiber to support LTE and speed-ups in WiMAX.

How will wireless fare in the long run? It’s hard to tell how fast will be fast enough for wireless broadband. We’re not there yet. Right now, the relatively small size of cellphone screens takes some pressure off the need for massive bandwidth, even for HD video. But what about that iPad? It’s surely just the first in a whole class of tablet size products with bigger screens and more processing power. That’s going to lead to higher bandwidth demands to support content to feed the tablets. The FCC is already eyeing underutilized TV channels and other portions of the spectrum to press into service for wireless broadband. There will likely be some technology advances needed in the wireless arena to satisfy the ultimate need. After all, you can put more fiber bandwidth in the ground that there are Gbps in the entire regulated electromagnetic spectrum.

Cell Phone Wireless Broadband

If you are only using a cell phone to talk, you're missing half the capability of the cellular networks. What started as a mobile voice network is now both a voice and data network. Not just text data, but wireless broadband Internet access that rivals fixed DSL and Cable broadband offerings.

What's available in mobile Internet service today? If you haven't used this capability or been following industry developments, you may be surprised by how available and how fast cell phone wireless Internet access has become. There are two rival systems in use today, with two more even faster networks starting the build-out phase.

AT&T has championed their HSDPA and EDGE networks, with the most talked-about implementation being the Apple iPhone. The original iPhone runs on EDGE, with broadband speeds around 100 Kbps. That's at least twice what you'd get with dial-up, but modest by broadband standards.

The new iPhone 3GS runs on the HSDPA or High Speed Download Packet Access network. That jumps the download speed up to a maximum of 3.6 Mbps, with typical user speeds around 500 to 700 Kbps. That's more what you'd expect in basic broadband service and enough to enable fast Web browsing and video downloads. Right now AT&T is upgrading its network to a faster technology called HSPA which should double your access speeds.

T-Mobile uses the same technologies for voice and data as AT&T. Both are worldwide carriers based on GSM service that is popular internationally.

Verizon and Sprint are CDMA rather than GSM carriers. That means they use a completely different technology. On the data side this is called EVDO for EVolution Data Optimized. EVDO is highly competitive with HSDPA, with a basic Rev 0 speed offering bursts of up to 2.1 Mbps on downloads and a typical speed of 400 to 700 Kbps. EVDO Rev A takes that up to 3.1 Mbps download bursts, although typical speeds are only modestly improved to around 800 Kbps. What Rev A really does is improve upload speeds to 300 to 400 Kbps.

As you can see, the 3G networks for the major cellular carriers give you similar performance. Your choice probably will revolve more around the coverage available in your area and the particular model of phone, aircard or netbook that you choose.

What's even more interesting is the 4G wireless broadband in the development and early deployment phase right now. Sprint has partnered with Clearwire to create a new service called WiMAX that will run on completely different frequencies. AT&T and Verizon are working to develop a competing technology called LTE, or Long Term Evolution, that will also use different frequencies than are being used for cellular service now. That means that 3G and 4G networks will co-exist, at least for awhile.

How fast will 4G be? They'll start out about 10x as fast as 3G and go up from there as the technology is refined and deployed everywhere. The 4G wireless networks will be the equal of faster wireline broadband services today and will easily support services such as real-time two-way video.

While 4G is the coming thing, 3G is the hot mobile broadband service readily available today. Discover the wide variety of cell phones, smartphones, wireless modem aircards and netbook computers available with cell phone wireless broadband, often free or at very attractive discounts.

4G Wireless Quietly Encroaching on 3G

To hear the cellular carriers describe it, the mobile world is going 3G wireless as the defined cutting edge technology available today. Meanwhile, a competing and faster technology is being slowly deployed, city by city, across the country. What's really going on?

It's actually little more than the usual pattern of technological improvement. It starts with an invention, in this case wireless data service, followed by steady improvements as time goes on. We saw this with the personal computer. Today's PC shares a lot of commonality with the one's of decades ago. You still have a CPU, disk drive, RAM, ROM, monitor, keyboard and mouse. But the speed and capacity of today's machines are orders of magnitude above the best you could buy years ago.

Mobile data is on a similar growth curve. WiFi hotspots are something of a unique product with a very limited coverage area, which is unlikely to change. Wide area mobile service is really the domain of the cellular carriers. By building an extensive network of towers and transmitting stations, they have wide footprint of wireless coverage for telephone calls. Piggybacking a data service on this same infrastructure is a logical and cost effective move.

What started as dial-up speed data service for mobile phones has been steadily improved down two paralleled paths, mirroring the two most popular types of cellular service. CDMA, used by Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel, offers EV-DO and EV-DO Rev. A cellular broadband. GSM, used by AT&T and T-Mobile, offers EDGE and HSPA broadband. The latest incarnations are considered third generation or 3G. Access is now available through many if not most cell phones, wireless aircards used as adaptors for laptop computers, and built into the latest netbook computers.

The 3G services aren't done evolving, but they soon will be. AT&T wants to double it's current 3 Mbps peak speed over the next couple of years. Verizon and Sprint are on a similar upgrade path, perhaps a little faster at deployment.

But one carrier isn't waiting for the 3G marketplace to mature. They're already moving ahead to 4G. That carrier is Sprint, in combination with Clearwire. Since the company carries the Clearwire name, those not watching this closely might not realize that it's related to the competitive cellular business.

The 4G technology is WiMAX, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It doesn't interfere with current cellular operations or use the same transmission frequencies. It's being launched in parallel with today's 3G networks. In a few cities you can have your choice of 3G or 4G. Download speeds for the 4G WiMAX service are typically 4 to 6 Mbps with bursts beyond 15 Mbps.

WiMAX also isn't being touted as a cellular technology. There's no cellphone service or handsets. Instead, WiMAX is being offered as a broadband Internet service for home or business, with a mobile service available through plug-in aircards like those used for 3G cellular. You can also get VoIP telephone service bundled, similar to what is offered by cable and telephone companies.

Where is WiMAX 4G service available? It's been deployed in Baltimore, Portland OR, and just recently Atlanta. The plan is also to launch service in Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas / Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle this year. By the end of 2010, Clearwire expects to be service 80 major cities in the U.S.

AT&T's 4G service will be based on LTE or Long Term Evolution technology. Verizon is planning a similar approach. LTE won't get started for a year or so, but it will follow a similar approach to WiMAX in that it will use different channels than those in use for 3G, so that both 3G and 4G services can exist simultaneously.

There is some thought that once 4G technologies mature, 3G will be phased out. Perhaps the current cell phone technologies will follow suit. The trend is toward converged IP networks for everything. That suggests that VoIP running on 4G networks along with data service on the same channels will be the new wireless communications technology.

Speedier Network For The iPhone

The Apple iPhone is something of a mixed blessing for AT&T. On the one hand, they have the exclusive cellular voice and data network for the one phone that's still a hot item in this decidedly cool economy. On the other hand, the sheer power of the iPhone's Internet applications is creating a nearly insatiable demand for more bandwidth. It's a challenge that AT&T is rising to meet.

Cellular towers communicate in two ways. One is through a set of channels assigned to handle telephone calls. The other is through a separate set of channels that provide wireless Internet access. It wasn't that many years ago that data was an afterthought for cell phones. Texting was the primary application, with email rising in popularity. Dial-up speeds were plenty good enough to handle slow text based services. But then cell phones started including cameras. With cameras came the demand to be able to send those pictures to other phones and post them on Internet sites. Web browsers started to be included. Today, the best ones are full HTML capable and work the way you'd expect on a desktop or notebook computer. The final straw is video. People aren't satisfied waiting for short low definition video clips to download. Now they want high quality streaming video and even live TV.

As you can imagine, these faster applications have increased the demands on cellular service the same way they did for home and business access. Dial-up is totally inadequate. Entry level broadband is noticeably poky. What everyone wants is the same speeds they get at home and at work. That's typically in the 3 to 10 Mbps range for what's considered "fast" service today.

The first Apple iPhone operated on what is called the EDGE network. That's an acronym for Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution. It refers to a protocol used by GSM carriers, a popular International standard. AT&T is a GSM carrier. AT&T advertises EDGE download speeds as being in the range of 75 to 135 Kbps on the average. Peak speeds are higher, but it depends on how close to the tower you are and how many other users are sharing the service. Enhanced means enhanced over the previous dial-up speeds offered on the network.

The second version of the iPhone runs on the AT&T 3G Network which uses a different protocol called HSPA or High Speed Packet Access. Download speeds are improved to 700 Kbps to 1.7 Mbps, with fast upload speeds of 500 Kbps to 1.2 Mbps. Peak speeds can hit 3.6 Mbps. That's a lot faster, and more typical of what you need to run today's demanding applications even in a mobile environment.

But there's no way that AT&T can afford to rest at this plateau of performance. In fact, they're reportedly doubling their HSPA technology with software upgrades to achieve a peak bandwidth of 7.2 Mbps. That probably equates to 1 to 2.4 Mbps on average for typical use. There is also another upgrade possible to double that to a peak capacity of 14.4 Mbps.

The days of 3G are numbered, however. The hot new technologies are LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMAX which promise bandwidths of 10 Mbps or more. Sprint and Clearwire are building out WiMAX. Verizon and AT&T are going with LTE. This technology will have the designation of "4G" to imply another generation of wireless technology. Until the economy picks up, though, don't expect a rapid deployment of 4G this year or even next. After that, 4G could become the new 3G and everybody will wondering when they're going to get something really fast... like 5G.

4G Wireless Broadband Wars This Year

Later this year, the battle for 4G domination will begin in earnest.

4G? Has 3G really finished deployment yet? Actually, 3G wireless networks are pretty well out there. The big players, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, have upgraded most of their tower sites in populous areas. Many 3G smartphones and wireless modem aircards are available. While user awareness and adoption of 3G is still early on the learning curve, there's seemingly no time to waste for the carriers. It's on to 4G!

What's the big hurry? Part of it is an increasing sophistication in mobile applications with a corresponding increase in bandwidth demand. Some is good old fashioned competition. Think of it something like the space race or the building of the transcontinental railroad. The real value of these 4G networks is less about what's absolutely needed now and what they will enable in the future.

The 3G competition is based on two competing incompatible standards. The CDMA networks of Verizon, Alltel, and Sprint have developed EVDO technology. GSM networks, including AT&T, T-Mobile and foreign carriers have developed UMTS broadband, notably EDGE and HSPA.

The 4G competition is also dividing along two lines. First out of the gate is WiMAX, a worldwide standard for fixed and mobile broadband. But building steam is LTE, which is oddly enough being embraced by both Verizon and AT&T. Who's pushing WiMAX? Sprint and a fixed wireless player, Clearwire.

Is this going to be something like the ongoing DTV transition where one technology goes dark and the other immediately takes its place? No, not really. Both 3G and 4G will co-exist for a long time to come. WiMAX is being deployed in the 2.5 GHz band using the combined channel licenses owned by Sprint and Clearwire. Verizon and AT&T will use 700 MHz spectrum acquired in the recent telecom auction that was formerly the domain of analog TV broadcasting. That allows 3G cellular broadband to continue on the existing cellular bands as long as it makes economical sense.

One question is how much additional bandwidth we'll get from 4G wireless. During the run-up to the WiMAX standards approval, it was widely touted that a single WiMAX tower would have a range of something like 30 miles with bandwidth anywhere from 30 to 70 Mbps near the transmitter. In practice, Sprint was offering 2 to 4 Mbps download speeds on its Xohm service in Baltimore. The Xohm name has been retired, as Clearwire is taking over management of the combined Sprint and Clearwire channels. Clearwire has upped that to 4 to 6 Mbps on its Clear (tm) 4G wireless service for Portland, OR.

LTE hasn't been deployed yet, but peak data rates of 60 to 80 Mbps have been observed in tests. Verizon has suggested that average LTE data rates of around 8 Mbps are likely in actual service, although that may be conservative. Since there is a tradeoff between bandwidth, number of users per transmitter and distance from the tower, it seems likely that both LTE and WiMAX could be scaled up to provide speedier service as customer demand and the competitive environment dictate.

WiMAX has a lead in the race to the 4G wireless marketplace, with systems already in commercial service. Verizon's LTE has an advantage of frequencies lower in the electromagnetic spectrum, which should translate into greater ability to penetrate into buildings. Verizon expects to have 2 markets served by LTE by the end of this year. In 2010, Verizon expects to launch around 25 to 30 markets with LTE service. WiMAX will likely have a similar service level. There are now 50 markets in the U.S. and Europe with a pre-market version of WiMAX service.

4G wireless will likely reach a tipping point in 2011 or 2012, depending on the economy. Both mobile and fixed location services will be available, offering competition to DSL and Cable modem service as well as powering smartphones and netbooks. What will all this bandwidth be used for? You can bet that video will be the proverbial "killer-app", along with cloud computing and interactive everything.

Tripping the LTE Fantastic

While a lot of attention is being lavished on fiber optic build-outs and mobile WiMAX, the next dominant technology in broadband communications could be LTE. Would you believe gigabit wireless communications?

For everyone frustrated with sluggish 1G connections or the poky first generation iPhone, the idea of 1,000 Mbps at their fingertips while on the go seems fanciful. After all, there's just so much bandwidth coming off one of those cell towers. Or is there? Apparently, new technical approaches can boost wireless bandwidth a lot more than we ever suspected.

Nokia Siemens Networks recently demonstrated something they call LTE-Advanced. By combining a 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) antenna system and an in-band relay station, Nokia claims to have boosted the bandwidth available over LTE to 1 Gbps. And who knows what the real limit will be?

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution. It's a technology being specified by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a collaboration between various telecommunications associations. The group's name may be the most limiting aspect of this work, as LTE is seen as a 4G or 4th generation technology and LTE-Advanced should probably be called 5G.

These "G's" are coming at us faster than CPU upgrades a generation ago. Most cellular broadband is now at the 3G level, using EV-DO (EVolution Data Optimized) and HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access) with DSL-like speeds typically around 700 Kbps. EV-DO is a CDMA cellular network technology used by Verizon and Sprint. HSDPA is for GSM networks such as AT&T.

LTE was developed as a GSM technology for use worldwide. But, Verizon has already announced it is defecting from its evolutionary path with EV-DO and moving over to LTE for its future build-outs. So eager are they to get a piece of that 4G action that Verizon is expected to deploy LTE on their network as early as the coming year. LTE promises download speeds exceeding 100 Mbps and could be ramped up to several times that without having to wait for LTE-Advanced development. Those are fiber optic speeds or better at today's technology levels.

Why the big rush to switch protocols? Mobile video for one thing. Video is quickly replacing voice and even data as the "kill ap" for digital. Another is the possibility of providing speedy Internet service, also with video in mind, to fixed location business and residential users, as well as mobile. Clearwire is deploying WiMAX with that in mind, so now's the time to capture that market before they get too invested in WiMAX technology.

Both WiMAX and LTE are in the early ramp-up phase of their deployments. For users who want mobile broadband now, there is wide availability of 3G cellular broadband services for smartphones and aircards from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon.

Mobile Broadband Faster Than Optical?

The holy grail of broadband is fiber optic transmission, with it's potentially limitless bandwidth. In practical applications such as FTTH, that backbone bandwidth is divvied up as it is delivered to homes and businesses on passive optical networks. Verizon FiOS, the leader in FTTH, now offers up to 50 Mbps download with 20 Mbps upload in selected areas. That's nearly an order of magnitude above most Cable broadband and DSL, and way beyond the capability of mobile broadband. Or is it?

According to a recent report, cell phone manufacturer Ericsson has tested LTE mobile broadband technology to peak speeds of 130 Mbps with growth possibilities to 260 Mbps. Wow! Wireless broadband in the hundreds of Megabits per second. Where do I sign up?

Well, not so fast. When they say that LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, they mean it. LTE is the 4G or fourth generation wireless data standard intended to replace current technologies such as EDGE or HSDPA on GSM cellular networks. AT&T is a prime candidate and T-Mobile is likely to follow.

Ericsson's proof of concept testing used the maximum of 4 transmit streams received by 4 MIMO antennas over 10 MHz channels. MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna technology improves wireless performance when there is interference present, as there will be in any mobile situation, especially in metro areas. By doubling the channel bandwidth to 20 Mbps, the transmission rate could peak near 300 Mbps.

So what would you do with 130 Mbps, much less 260 Mbps? It seems unlikely that you'll need this capability for text messaging or even Web browsing. Think high definition TV or HDTV video conferencing. Business users will be able to download massive files while on the road and easily run applications remotely. Plus, who knows what the future will bring? So far, technology development has shown that we can quickly find uses for any amount of processor speed, memory, hard drive capability or bandwidth that is offered. It isn't necessarily what you're doing now, but what you might do tomorrow that counts.

Tomorrow is where LTE is targeted. Remember that AT&T has just started offering the 3G iPhone running on its HSDPA network. They're going to need some breathing time before getting their tower sites upgraded to LTE. But not too much breathing time. Sprint's WiMAX is out to capture the early lead in 4G with its Xohm WiMAX network that has just started operations in Baltimore. Ericsson expects LTE to start becoming available in the latter part of next year.

Even so, it will be some time before the 4G networks will be offering 100 Mbps bandwidth to their customers. Right now, affordable 3G technology is available in the 1 to 3 Mbps range using plug-in aircards for laptop computers and built into selected mobile phones. Check out the complete selection of current offerings at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

Is LTE too LATE?

Mobile wireless standards seem to be a hodge podge of alphabet soup technologies. There's 1xRTT, EVDO Revs 0, A, B & C, GPRS, UMTS, HSDPA, EDGE, and LTE. Why so many? For the same reason that there was Pentium I, II, III and IV, just to mention a very few of the CPUs that came and went in the last quarter century. While PC designs have achieved a certain level of maturity, wireless broadband is still scrambling up the learning curve. The latest that has mobile content providers drooling is called LTE. But is LTE really the next big thing or is it too LITE or too LATE?

The acronym LTE stands for Long Term Evolution. But evolution of what? GSM data networks, that's what. Even beyond GSM networks. It's intended to be worldwide standard for mobile communications created by the the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a collaborative project among telecommunications organizations. In the long run, or should we say long term, LTE will supersede a potpourri of other standards including GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA & HSPA+. Some of these are familiar. Others you may have never heard of. If LTE evolves fast enough to kill off these lower species, you may never get familiar with them.

Perhaps the most familiar of this group is EDGE or Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. This is the wireless broadband standard implemented in the Apple iPhone. AT&T is the largest GSM carrier in the United States. It's a well established technology, but just barely qualifies as broadband. Download speeds are up to 237 Kbps, typically half that. This is why iPhone users are screaming for 3G.

HSDPA or High Speed Downlink Packet Access would be the next upgrade. This standard picks up where EDGE leaves off and ramps broadband speeds up to a theoretical maximum of 14.4 Mbps. Quite an increase. In practical use, the download speed you'd experience is likely to be half that or less. Still, Mbps instead of Kbps. Who could ask for more?

At some point, you'll be the one asking for more. We're use to stifled bandwidth and especially stifled mobile bandwidth. That's why we've settled for "mobile" browsers, text messaging, and email. The nice thing about the iPhone is that if you run out of patience waiting for pages to load, you can always get a coffee or some lunch and use the restaurant's free WiFi to get some decent bandwidth. But then it's time to hit the road again and there goes your Internet experience.

Deploying HSDPA and its upgrades will support today's applications. You'll be able to get mobile performance that feels similar to WiFi hotspots. But carriers will still be playing catch-up as customers become enamored with new high bandwidth applications, such as HDTV, and wonder why they still feel stifled.

Carriers such as AT&T with plans to deploy LTE networks hope to get ahead of the curve. That's what the "long" in long term evolution implies. Imagine having 300 Mbps download speeds at your command. That's along with 75 Mbps upload. True, that's likely to be the performance you'd get right under the tower with nobody else on the channel and no breezes blowing. But still, it's 300 Mbps.

Interestingly, the real powerhouse wireless technology being touted for mobile applications has a maximum download speed of about the same 75 Mbps that LTE offers on the upload channel. That's WiMAX. WiMAX is on its way and we might see Sprint's network in operation this year. That is, if the money holds out.

LTE offers another intriguing characteristic. It has low delay times or latency. How low? How about 10 msec? You're lucky to get under 100 msec on wireline Internet services. The high speed link coupled with low latency characteristics makes LTE a good candidate for lots of new applications, especially real time applications. That suggests not only VoIP telephony but high resolution video conferencing as well. Also real time gaming, television and video on demand, medical imaging and engineering file transfers.

I think it's clear that LTE is certainly not LITE when it comes to performance. It's not too LATE either. WiMAX is taking its good old time rolling out and EVDO Rev C, which might also be a competitor, is also nowhere to be seen. That leaves a nice window of opportunity for LTE just as higher bandwidths are starting to become necessary for more demanding applications.

Will WiMAX Become WiMedium?

WiMAX, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access wireless broadband standard, has been looked to as the enabling agent for 4G roaming and mobile networks. In all the ballyhoo of the last few years, though, other technologies have been creeping up and may now be poised to grab the 4G crown for themselves.

The promise of WiMAX was to extend the concept of WiFi hotspots from hundreds of feet to tens of miles. A mobile hand-off extension will enable WiMAX to maintain connections from tower to tower to increase its reach indefinitely. But isn't that how cell phone towers work? Similar concept. WiMAX has been expected to one-up the cellular carriers by offering 10x to 100x the bandwidth of 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband with enough punch to be useful inside buildings as well as on the street.

But WiMAX is planned to be much more than a mere public hotspot replacement. Much of the capital justification to build out the new system is based on using it for cellular backhaul, T1 and DS3 business line replacement, and perhaps more arcane uses such as industrial and utility data acquisition and control. The juicy consumer mobile Internet market is yet to come.

Had WiMAX muscled-in on the wireless scene a few years ago, it might well have been the 800 lb. gorilla in the field right now. But the need for standards approval, testing, equipment certification and worldwide coordination has kept the gorilla slogging along rather than jumping into the fray. Business wireless providers have had to go forward with pre-WiMAX implementations to grab a piece of the marketplace before it goes elsewhere.

Where might it go? Those sleepy cellular carriers with their poky Kbps data links have been making steady progress. EV-DO is now widely available on CDMA carriers such as Verizon and Sprint. It offers DSL grade bandwidth of 700 Kbps with bursts up to 1.4 Mbps. But the new EV-DO Rev. A upgrade is also being deployed with service of 800 Kbps with bursts of to 3.1 Mbps and a faster upload speed of around 500 to 700 Kbps.

Perhaps that doesn't sound like much, but it's about what most users really need on an individual basis. It's fast enough for Internet Web access, video and audio streaming and even video conferencing. The 50 to 70 Mbps WiMAX speeds will probably degrade to an average of around 2 or 3 Mbps for multiple roaming and mobile users who aren't standing right under the tower. All of a sudden EV-DO looks pretty competitive. Especially when you consider that the Rev B version could provide peak bandwidths of 5 to 15 Mbps depending on how how it's deployed.

But the real cellular broadband monster may be LTE which stands for Long Term Evolution. By long term, it's probably several years away. Verizon is moving ahead with this technology and AT&T is expected to also adopt it as their 4G standard. LTE will offer download speeds of 100 Mbps or more with uploads of 50 Mbps at low latencies. These are Ethernet speeds, even Fast Ethernet speeds, enabling applications such as high definition video.

The big advantage the major cellular carriers have is that they already own networks of tower sites that blanket the highly populated areas where there are lots and lots of potential mobile broadband users. Sprint has the spectrum and plans to deploy a nationwide WiMAX network, but is having trouble coming up with the billions of dollars needed to develop this market. If WiMAX doesn't gain a strong foothold soon, it may find itself needing a standards upgrade just to keep up in the wireless bandwidth race.

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Is WiMAX Worth the Wait?

WiMAX, the new wireless broadband communications standard, has been eagerly anticipated for several years. We've watched with anticipation as the concept turned into standards, equipment certification began, and initial pilot projects were launched. WiMAX is still coming, but will it still be as exciting when it gets here?

WiMAX is the acronym for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It's a truly international standard that will be useful in applications as diverse as cellular backhaul, mobile Internet, business broadband, and perhaps even a WiFi replacement. WiMAX has power and range as well as bandwidth. WiFi hotspots have proliferated and become very popular for accessing the Internet while on the go. But WiFi coverage is measured in feet. WiMAX coverage is measured in miles.

So, does that mean we're about to send all of our DSL and cable modems, WiFi access points, and cell phones to the recycling bin? Not much chance of that. These technologies are pretty well entrenched. What's more, other wireline and wireless solutions are building out to offer competition for the forecasted WiMAX tsunami.

Cellular broadband is the most aggressive in upgrading tower sites to increase upload and download speeds. Just as the CDMA networks, notably Verizon, Sprint and Alltel, begin to cover most heavily populated areas with EV-DO, an upgrade to EV-DO Rev A is launched.

EV-DO offers speeds similar to what you expect from DSL broadband. Burst speeds are up to 2.4 Mbps download, although 700 Kbps is probably more a typical speed in crowded urban areas. Upload is a mere 153 Kbps burst with 50 Kbps probably more typical. Bandwidth is sufficient to support aircards and built-in access for notebook computers. It's also been an enabler for streaming video and music downloads on cell phones.

EV-DO Rev A increases the bandwidth to a 3.1 Mbps download burst, which should incrementally improve real world performance. The big improvement is in upload speed to 1.8 Mbps. With Rev A, applications such as VoIP and video transmission become practical for mobile users.

What's more, there is a Rev B upgrade in the works for EV-DO. It further increases downlink speeds by 3x to a burst rate of 9.3 Mbps using a technique called DO Multi-carrier to bond 3 channels. Peak rates up to 14.7 Mbps are possible by allocating more station bandwidth to EV-DO transmissions.

A competing technology, known at LTE or Long Term Evolution, is in development. Download speeds are up to 100 Mbps with 20 msec latency. While it may be at least a couple of years before LTE is deployed to cellular base stations, it's clear that cellular-based broadband has the potential to compete with other wireless technologies including WiMAX.

WiMAX got everyone excited with a prediction of 70 Mbps bandwidth over as much as 30 miles coverage. The range as well as the potential link speed is what sets WiMAX apart. But a network of cellular broadband stations could do pretty much the same job. In fact, WiMAX might see its greatest application in providing backhaul services for those competing cellular stations.

As of this writing WiMAX deployment is off to a slow start. The real impediment is the billions of dollars that need to be invested in transmitting infrastructure to operate a nationwide network. Sprint and Clearwire have been in discussions to combine forces in using their existing bandwidth to blanket the country. The current 700 MHz spectrum auctions could also release choice frequencies for WiMAX use.

Pre-WiMAX implementations are already providing wireless business links in some major cities. Covad is offering what they describe as "T1-class wireless broadband" in 200 California cities, plus Las Vegas and suburban Chicago. Bandwidths from 1.5 Mbps to 100 Mbps are offered as available. Wireless bandwidth is especially valuable to businesses not already lit for fiber optic service but needing to expand their WAN connections.

Is your company looking for the optimum bandwidth services to support your digital telephony and data transmission needs? If so, check out a suite of options that include wireless, wireline, fiber optic and satellite delivery.