Welcome to the second in the new incarnation of the “Week in standards” series. I am always surprised by how much activity there is in the standards world in only a week, and this week is no exception. So here we go. Again, the goal is to provide as broad a review as possible, and please feel free to leave any feedback/suggestions in the comments section below.
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As the third generation of wireless mobile networks reaches the end of its development and the next generation looms on the horizon, the term 4G is being increasing thrown around as the latest buzz work for the mobile industry.

Technically speaking, no network or device commercially available as of writing can truly be described as 4G. The radio-communication division of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines 4G, or IMT-Advanced, compliant technology as being capable, among other key features, of data rates in excess of “100 Mbit/s for high and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility” systems. However, with the progress of the industry as it is, the strict definition of the term seems to be in danger of irrelevance.
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While a lot of attention has been placed on the growing standards war for next generation wireless network standards between LTE and WiMAX – for instance see here and here – a number of interesting developments have been made regarding the Chinese developed outsider TD-LTE.

TD-LTE is a standard for wireless mobile networks and 4G candidate which has been developed by China Mobile, building upon the TD-SCDMA 3G standard. The TD-LTE stems from China’s indigenous innovation policy which seeks to reduce China’s reliance upon foreign IPR by supporting the use of domestic alternatives. (Don’t miss the upcoming Talkstandards open forum for further discussion on China’s standards policy).
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The industry backed LTE 4G standard is poised to be a great contender to the existing WiMAX technology. While a few countries have already started rolling out LTE networks, and many more are in the starting blocks, Australia have decided to not follow this development.
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Next week the 3GPP will host the LTE world summit in the Netherlands. The conference focuses on the 3GPP’s (3rd Generation Partnership Project) LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard for next generation mobile telecommunications networks. LTE is the main competitor to the WiMAX standard, both of which are branded as 4G mobile network standards, and is capable of speeds up to 100Mbit/s downloads and 50Mbits/s uploads wirelessly.
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