China and Japan are developing a “4G” standard, reports Silicon.com.
An agreement to that effect will be signed on 26 August in Tokyo between state representatives, a spokesman for the Japanese ministry for interior affairs and communication told AFP. “During the meeting, we expect to sign an agreement regarding co-operation in research and development, with a view to creating a standard to be used worldwide,” he said.
The spectrum of R&D in this case could be almost anything, given that the technical specifics of 4G have yet to be firmed up, a spokesman for Samsung - one of the key members of the 4G Forum, a vendor coalition conducting 4G R&D - said recently. “Currently, the debate is around the uses for 4G… We will then base the technical specifications around those uses,” he said.
China…represents the largest mobile market in the world, with close to 335 million users at the end of 2004.
NTT has been researching “4G” since before WiMax was a gleam in Roger Mark’s eye. Original plans involved 100 Mbps wireless transmission. Recently, NTT successfully tested 1 Gbps wireless using their 4G technology. The 1Gbps speed was achieved by using Variable Spreading Factor-Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (VSF-Spread OFDM) and a 4-by-4 Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna.
The cellular industry is also planning future versions of HSDPA. “MIMO will boost HSDPA“, say Bernd Haberland and Volker Braun. They believe OFDM with MIMO antenna diversity will be introduced in future phases of HSDPA to boost data rates and capacity. While antenna diversity is relatively easy to implement at the base station, limitations on space and processing power will make true MIMO difficult to achieve on the handset.
NTT & China Inc. may squash Qualcomm like a bug. Or not.
DailyWireless has more on GigE to the Home - Wireless Next?, GigE WiMax? and More Gigabit Wireless.
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