LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a set of industry standards promoted by the 3GPP association also responsible for the evolution and maintenance of GSM and 3G/UMTS standards. LTE, in its release 8, defines the technological basis for the first commercial devices. It is currently in development at release 12.
LTE is a packet switching network implementation, easy to deploy, with high transfer rates (over 100Mbps) and an excellent latency mark of about 10ms. This latency, some higher than we can achieve with Fiber Optic/FTTH (5ms) but lesser than ADSL (40ms) and UMTS (150ms), combined with the high transfer rates implies a highly rewarding experience for the user.
Besides, it is a network that uses packet switching, an all-IP network, facilitating its deployment. As packet network cannot handle SMS or phone calls like traditional circuit switching manner, but this will not be a problem because these calls could be carried by the GSM network, despite LTE allows voice calls over IP with IMS-VoIP.
On the other hand, high transfer rates will lead us easily to achieve 100Mbps (@ratio 2:2, two antennas at the base and two in the terminal) or up to 300Mbps downstream with a ratio of 4:4. And this is only the beginning, LTE-Advanced is on the way...
Evolution of mobile networks from GSM to LTE-Adv.
And one more thing, LTE represents (finally!) the integration technology between devices and networks. LTE devices may be used on a global scale even those designed specifically to operate only with 3G/UMTS (TDD) or CDMA (FDD) networks.
We hope LTE networks become a reality in 2012. So, we'll be able to experience their benefits soon.
Best regards, David
P.S. Feel free to comment, help me to improve my posts. ;-)
