4G will definitely be delayed: future pain for 4G handset makers
4G was to be the big future change in telecoms. It meant the possibility of a major sales bonanza and, more importantly, it gave every major one of Europe’s leading mobile phone operators to get back into the picture with the company of its choice.
It would have meant that Apple could possibly have met very serious oppositon with the early sales bonanza coming from the launch of fourth-generation wireless networks. They were so far ahead with their planning they had models, like the one on the right, strutting around as Miss 4G.
Now Vodafone, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have stated irrevocably they will delay spending billions of euros on rolling out 4G networks for at least two or three years, partly because they need to reassure investors about their capital expenditure plans.
This is so that they can get across a message to their reassure investors that they are not about to engage in a capital spending splurge. What have they done to deserve this? The paid so much money, totally daft amount, for the 3G networks that it will be generations before they get this money back.
Fourth-generation wireless technology should allow documents to be downloaded almost instantaneously and videos to be watched in high-definition quality. Trials suggest it will enable download speeds of more than 50 megabits per second. It would have been television on your mobile phone.
4G (also known as Beyond 3G), an abbreviation for Fourth-Generation, is a loose (there is no accepted scientific definition) term used to describe the next complete evolution in wireless communications. A 4G system will be able to provide a comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be given to users on an ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ basis, and at higher data rates than previous generations.
As the second generation was a total replacement of the first generation networks and handsets, and the third generation was a total replacement of second generation networks and handsets, so too the fourth generation cannot be an incremental evolution of current 3G technologies, but rather the total replacement of the current 3G networks and handsets.
There is no formal definition for 4G ; however, there are certain objectives that are projected for 4G.
These objectives include: that 4G will be a fully IP-based integrated system. 4G will be capable of providing between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s speeds both indoors and outdoors, with premium quality and high security.
Don’t expect it real now. And if it were available now the Apple iPod, good though it may be, would be up against serious opposition including Android.
The Financial Times writes that to compete you have to take a serious risk in Europe – the United States are not involved as yet — but the same decision is bound to come.
Ericsson, Huawei Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks are likely to see their biggest mobile infrastructure deals in emerging markets (not Europe) this year.
Either you sell big time in China with your 3G networks or you simply will not be in the game.
The figures are now quite clear.
Vodafone will not be rolling out 4G networks until possibly 2012.
Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, said the company was focusing on 3G technology.
Didier Lombard, chief executive of France Telecom, which owns Orange, said: ‘The major equipment vendors are understandably keen to encourage all operators to invest early in 4G. However, the reality on the ground is that a large-scale roll-out of LTE across all our geographies is unnecessary for at least a couple of years given the headroom that still exists with 3G and 3G+.’
That is where 3G+ — there is no formal definition — can mean what you want it to mean.
Hamid Akhavan, head of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile division, said the earliest possible date for 4G is 2011.
This news has further implications.
It means that iPhone, unless it makes some unbelievably stupid error, will hold at least half of the 3G market in the United States and Europe and is in with a fighting chance to come damn close to that in Asia.
Yes, Android may be there scrapping at the fringes although performance today has been less than stellar. But the big chance has gone.
Apple will be the major upmarket player telecoms set sold worldwide until at least 2012. Maybe longer.
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May 26th, 2009
Thank you very much for this article. I have a question on one of your quote of Didier Lombard
“The major equipment vendors are understandably keen …..geographies is unnecessary for at least a couple of years.”
I would like to know when and at what event he said this. I hope you can help me. Many thanks again
September 1st, 2011
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