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Originally Posted by zsayeed
Not quite, 3G is still holding strong and will be for a WHILE. The global presence of 4G is a while away 2-5 years at a minimum for developed countries, and 10+ for developing countries. Just look at Europe's progress. US is much more advanced in that respect. Going to HSPA on the 3g evolution path can still bring about half the spectral efficiency of LTE. And that is without infrastructure change, no new spectrum procurement, and only a card swap in the Node-Bs and software upgrade at the core servers with a redimensioning of the links for increased traffic. WSPs will not be willing to overhaul an entire nework and get new spectrum to deploy 4G.
3G to HSPA will be in same spectrum, and spectrum is VERY Expensive. So, 3G will live a long time. Most operators have not yielded all that it can from 3G .. as yet. CapEx Investments and the need for new spectrum will hold back 4G for a while, and to be able to get half the 4G speeds without new spectrum and infrastructure is a big business driving force for staying with 3G. Heck, I would. That would be the business sensible thing to do.
GSM->GPRS->EDGE->WCDMA->HSDPA->HSUPA->HSPA is a homogeneous evolution.
To go to 4G is a totally disjoint path. It is disruptive. 4G is based on OFDM, while 3G was based on CDMA (Even though GSM was a TDMA structure, the core evolution of GSM-GPRS-EDGE-WCDMA was graceful, and retained the architecture and added incremental changes to the core). The infrastructure in the 2G to 3G evolution was E1 termination, elements were RNC, SGSN, GGSN, HSS - all of them stayed the same.
In 4G the termination needs to be IP at Base Station, the core is all IP, circuit voice is NOT supported - ever! The core is P-Gateway, S-Gateway, MME. The eNodeB is a router and a base station and an RNC. 3G to 4G evolution is a non-evolution and actually a new breed where the 3G CapEx will all be dismantled once the entire subscriber base switches over to 4G for a particular operator. Until the last guy leaves, the operator will have to maintain to parallel paths, and assuming OpEx is 10% of cumulative YoY CapEx - that is an expensive proposition maintaining two parallel sets of technicians, retraining, two knowledge bases. The human factor is the most expensive to run any network, and introducing a disruptive change spikes your OpEX.
On another note, the Mobile Device is one of the major contributors/detractors for subscriber growth. the 3G volume is so high, that the WCDMA/GSM chip-sets are most likely at 1/10th the price of LTE chip-sets. Tom dick and harry foundries can make the 3G chips. For LTE there are a handful of vendors: Qualcomm, LG, Infenion. The economies of scale will take a while to kick in. Plus, the same chipset handles WCDA and GSM with GPS as well (Qcomm's SnapDragon). But to have the same chipset handle LTE and 3G will be an expensive task. Most likely they will be two parallel chips in the hand-set. That too is costly.
3G to 4G is not so simple. For 90% of the world's operators. Period.
Therefore, its not an "LoL' moment at all. Don't need to look at Bangladesh for that... take a look at Europe! They too will lag - they are lagging... its a business decision.
Having said all that, all these 3G-4G discussions will not help BC, because unless the long-haul link is fixed, and as long as the server for BC is off-shore, 3G or 4G for local access in BD will be moot as the bottle neck is the long-haul network.
PS: Had it not been for VzW's 4G, ATT would have stuck to 3G/HSPA. Competition changes the game. The technology may speak a different story that HSPA is half as good, and most people do not need more than that (except the video hogs) - but mantra sells, and VzW would have used 4G as mantra. Plus the Apple company changes the game - empowering users with greater resolution and bandwidth - crunching the WSPs network. In fact with the best plan from ATT's data plan, you can eat up your months supply of MBytes in two hours. There is basically a gap between business and technology in 4G. It is not perfect - unsettling and needs to be thought out. It is complex - NO LOL there.
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