Mobitel’s ramping up. They’ve just made a new addition to their services: a 4G-LTE network on par with what most other countries are using at the moment. Right now their service portfolio runs the gamut from FD LTE, DC HSPA+, HSPA, UMTS to lowly 2G. That’s pretty fast, considering First-World countries like the UK are also new to 4G.
The 4G-LTE tech that Mobitel employs is considered an upgrade to existing 3G services: it uses the same principles and basic technology, with certain network upgrades and different transmitters and receivers.
Of course, this news isn’t exactly unexpected. Sometime in May 2011, Mobitel announced that their 4G-LTE trial yielded 96 Mbps on the downlink – while we at Readme have yet to benchmark or record this process, this would be the first time in South Asia that such speeds have been reached using an LTE network.
Quoting to the official press release: “Mobitel will be able to yield the best out of the mobile 4G/LTE services with the power of it’s parent company SLT’s extensive fibre network which will be beneficial to the country’s future. All these investments are part of the operator’s efforts towards leading the development of the country’s ICT infrastructure in keeping with it’s image of being the National Mobile Service Provider.” From the Readme offices: we’ll be sure to follow the 4G developments and test them once they’re out in the field.
HI Readme.lk,
i believe you information is wrong & future is not 4G its, LTE & It is DC HSPA +
not either mobitel website nor facebook page has these information..
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4943/the-iphone-4s-…
Hello, @MafaHussain. I believe you’ve touched an important point here.
The (ITU-R)specification for 4G states that the connection must support speeds of upto 1 Gbps for stationary/low-mobility users and upto 100 Mbps for highly mobile users.
Current LTE networks cannot support that speed. Judging by that alone, LTE is not 4G.
However, since the ITU-R merely makes the specifications, current LTE technology has been branded as “4G” for so long that the term 4G-LTE has officially been accepted the world over. Notice our usage of the term. This, combined with the fact that there is a vast gap between the ITU-R specs for 3G (100 Mbps) and 4G (1 Gbps) means that there is a large gray area into which LTE has slotted itself. LTE networks the world over are officially termed “4G”. Even though it does not match up to the official spec, it is acknowledged that LTE (along with mobile WiMAX and TD-LTE) is the first generation of 4G – later generations of this same technology are expected to match the spec, and in time, maybe surpass it.
Also, LTE is not HSPA+. It is an improvement on HSPA, just like HSPA is an improvement of the 2G technologies that predated it, which were in turn an improvement based on wireless radio and other communications.
So for better or for worse, this type of network has been branded “4G” – first by marketers, and later by the whole world. LTE-A is expected to be fully 4G complaint. We’ll speak upon this later. Thank you very much for dropping by and taking the time to reply! It’s always good to hear from others who are keeping an eye on these developments.
Yours,
Yudhanjaya.