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Cellular mobile — the generation game

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BT Technology Journal

Abstract

Cellular mobile is at an important crossroads — with the industry still in the process of attempting a transition from the dominant second generation services of voice and messaging, to data-based services such as music download and gaming. Third generation technology has rolled out slowly in Europe and has yet to make much of an impact on the market. Against this backdrop, the cellular industry is now moving towards defining fourth generation mobile for introduction in 2012–2015. The emergence of new, non-cellular systems, such as WiMAX and WLAN are confusing the timeline and evolution of cellular systems with a heated debate about what constitutes a ‘4G system’. In addition, some people view convergence as the next generation of mobile with less emphasis on raw connection speed and more on access to the same services over a range of access technologies and devices. In this paper we critically examine these and other views of fourth generation mobile (4G) and identify the key technological, standards-related and commercial issues that will drive the evolution of 4G over the next few years.

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Authors
  1. D. Wisely
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Wisely, D. Cellular mobile — the generation game. BT Technol J 25, 27–41 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10550-007-0026-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10550-007-0026-4

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