What is LTE!

In the world of cell phones, 1G signifies first-generation wireless analog technology standards that originated in the 1980s. 1G was replaced by 2G wireless digital standards.

In the world of cell phones, 2G signifies second-generation wireless digital technology. Fully digital 2G networks replaced analog 1G, which originated in the 1980s.  2G networks saw their first commercial light of day on the GSM standard. GSM stands for global system for mobile communications.

3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology. 3G technologies enabled faster data-transmission speeds, greater network capacity and more advanced network services like EDGE (deployed as EDGE and Evolved EDGE), UMTS (deployed as WCDMA, HSPA and HSPA+) and CDMA 2000 (deployed as CDMA2000 1x and CDMA2000 High Rate Packet Data-EVDO). 

In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cell phone mobile communications standards. It is a successor of the third generation (3G) standards. A 4G system provides mobile ultra-broadband Internet access, for example to laptops with USB wireless modems, to smartphones, and to other mobile devices. Conceivable applications include amended mobile web access, IP telephony, gaming services, high-definition mobile TV, video conferencing and 3D television.

Two 4G candidate systems are commercially deployed: The Mobile WiMAX standard (at first in South Korea in 2006), and the first-release Long term evolution (LTE) standard (in Scandinavia since 2009). It has however been debated if these first-release versions should be considered as 4G or not. USB wireless modems have been available since the start, while WiMAX smartphone have been available since 2010, and LTE smartphones since 2011. Equipment made for different continents are not always compatible, because of different frequency bands. Mobile WiMAX and LTE smartphones are currently (April 2012) not available for the European market.

LTE (an shortened term of Long Term Evolution), marketed as 4G LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies.

LTE is increasing the capacity and speed using new modulation techniques. The standard is developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) and is specified in its Release 8 document series, with minor enhancements described in Release 9.

4G wireless is supposed to be anywhere from four to ten times faster than 3G networks. Verizon says its LTE network can deliver speeds between 5 megabits per second and 12 mbps

Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) (also known as Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), or IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), or Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM. EDGE is considered a pre-3G radio technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition. EDGE was deployed on GSM networks beginning in 2003 – initially by Cingular (now AT&T) in the United States.

EDGE is standardized also by 3GPP as part of the GSM family. Through the introduction of sophisticated methods of coding and transmitting data, EDGE delivers higher bit-rates per radio channel, resulting in a threefold increase in capacity and performance compared with an ordinary GSM/GPRS connection. EDGE can be used for any packet switched application, such as an Internet connection.

Evolved EDGE continues in Release 7 of the 3GPP standard providing reduced latency and more than doubled performance e.g. to complement High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA). Peak bit-rates of up to 1Mbit/s and typical bit-rates of 400kbit/s can be expected.

EDGE networks are designed to deliver multimedia applications such as streaming television, audio and video to mobile phones at speeds up to 384 Kbps. Such speeds still pale in comparison, though, to standard DSL and high-speed cable access today.

High Speed Packet Access (HSPA)[1] is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), that extends and improves the performance of existing WCDMA protocols. A further 3GPP standard, Evolved HSPA (also known as HSPA+), was released late in 2008 with subsequent worldwide adoption beginning in 2010.

AT&T says its HSDPA network can hit speeds of 3.6 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps. Real-world speeds typically are slower than that, but HSDPA is still a super-fast network.