4G

This article describes the wireless access technology 4G. For the 4G IATA code see Shenzhen Airlines

4G (or 4-G) is short for fourth-generation the successor of 3G and is a wireless access technology. It describes two different but overlapping ideas.

1. High-speed mobile wireless access with a very high data transmission speed, of the same order of magnitude as a local area network connection (10 Mbits/s and up). It has been used to describe wireless LAN technologies like Wi-Fi, as well as other potential successors of the current 3G mobile telephone standards.
2. Pervasive networks. An amorphous and presently entirely hypothetical concept where the user can be simultaneously connected to several wireless access technologies and can seamlessly move between them (See handover). These access technologies can be Wi-Fi, UMTS, EDGE or any other future access technology. Included in this concept is also smart-radio technology to efficiently manage spectrum use and transmission power as well as the use of mesh routing protocols to create a pervasive network .

See also

• Mesh networking
• 3G
• Handover

External links

• Mobile Mesh Networking News and info on Wireless Mesh Networks Wireless Broadband and 4G
• Ambient Networks Project An EU financed research project for "Mobile and Wireless Systems Beyond 3G"