Ireland to get 4G Mobile Soon (allegedly)

Sponge Bob

Its Digiweb

http://www.digiweb.ie/media_article.asp?id=108

Digiweb Ltd confirms that it has today concluded a €20m funding round in conjunction with the Moritz Group, one of Ireland’s leading investment development firms active throughout Ireland and Central Europe.

Until now, Digiweb’s rapid expansion and construction of its national networks has been entirely self-financed through reinvestment of revenues and a business expansion programme. The company has built a reputation for delivering innovative and quality services nationwide that other providers have found difficult to match. Digiweb’s Metro service, launched just 12 months ago, has enjoyed phenomenal take-up amongst both business and home subscribers, uniquely offering a Broadband and Telephone bundle for less than €20 per month, less than the basic line rental fee consumers are being charged by other operators before broadband is added.

The new funds will extend Digiweb’s ongoing expansion of Metro throughout Ireland, will support the company’s further expansion into Europe, and will build Ireland’s first 4G mobile network, details of which are due to be announced soon.

Is there any form of standard for 4g ???

Yeah I heard that earlier, does "4G" even exist?

Tree

it's just a faster standard, that's all. so yup, it does.

Sponge Bob

Tree wrote:

it's just a faster standard, that's all

It may be FASTER or it may be PERVASIVE instead , from the wiki description I suspect option 2 while you described option 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G

4G (or 4-G) is short for fourth-generation, the successor wireless access technology to 3G. It describes two different, but overlapping ideas. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) official name for 4G is "3G and beyond".

1. 4G technology stands to be the future standard of wireless devices. The Japanese company NTT DoCoMo and Samsung is testing 4G communication at 100 Mbit/s while moving, and 1 Gbit/s while stationary. NTT DoCoMo plans on releasing the first commercial network in 2010 and Samsung plans on commercialising this service by 2010 at Jeju Island, South Korea. Despite the fact that current wireless devices seldom utilize full 3G capabilities, there is a basic attitude that if you provide the pipeline then services for it will follow.
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 (also known as cognitive radio technology) to efficiently manage spectrum use and transmission power as well as the use of mesh routing protocols to create a pervasive network.

Interesting though.

Zapho

I read something about "smart antennas" which seems to be very similar to that Pervasive networks whereby a radio transceiver became a programmable piece of hardware, allowing a single device to connect to wi-fi, GSM, UMTS, FM/AM or bluetooth networks, and could be used with future wireless standards too.

I hadn't thought much work was put into it yet, but maybe 4G might be it.

democrates

Whatever the capability of emerging technologies the issue for me is will we still be stuck with more cost-added value-subtracted 'intelligent' network atrocities like traditional mobile voice calls, sms, mms, wap etc instead of cheaper and better internet technologies like voip, IM, email, web-browsing etc.

Listen up network providers: give us ip dial tone without restriction on unlocked handsets, and don't confuse internet access provision with internet service provision.

mkennedy

isn't 4g wimax.
or is wimax just an example of a 4g network?

rogue-entity

Zapho wrote:

I read something about "smart antennas" which seems to be very similar to that Pervasive networks whereby a radio transceiver became a programmable piece of hardware, allowing a single device to connect to wi-fi, GSM, UMTS, FM/AM or bluetooth networks, and could be used with future wireless standards too.

I hadn't thought much work was put into it yet, but maybe 4G might be it.

That does sound similar to Software Dependent Radio, a concept already in use with mobile phones. Basically, a phone would have the antenna and hardware to send and receive radio signals from the network, but the data-processing to make a phone work with GSM, CDMA or UMTS is done by a programmable chip. The idea being that the one chip could be used to handle different protocols so a phone could be written to work with CDMA, just as simply as GSM or UMTS and even the older US Analogue networks too.

jesus_thats_gre

Sponge Bob wrote:

Is there any form of standard for 4g ???

I am thinking that once the network is completely IP based and delivers a lot of bandwidth, it will be considered 4G.. Bah, don't know.

jesus_thats_gre

mkennedy wrote:

isn't 4g wimax.
or is wimax just an example of a 4g network?

I remember WiMax being toucted as a 3G killer/alternative about 4 years ago when I was doing my dissertation..

democrates

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

I am thinking that once the network is completely IP based and delivers a lot of bandwidth, it will be considered 4G.. Bah, don't know.

Yes, the ntrg at TCD have been researching 4g since the late 90's, even a 4g phone app. When I spoke to them back then the view was that ip was the future.

But it's trench war with providers because they don't want to cannibalise the cartelesque lucrative crap services they currently provide, and keep making their in-house content services part of the network access service, even down to the handset. IP is all we need then we can add all the ip apps we like to the phones we bought. Retarding us they are, needs an EU directive. /rant.

watty

We might see some Mobile Wimax somewhere in the world end of next year. Fixed Wimax is out, but more expensive than current comparable solutions.

ns06

4G won't be out until they release the new speedbump in the form of 3.5G, which is gonna be between 1.2-1.8Mbps.

Vodafone Ireland (following the lead of Vodafone UK) shall be launching theirs in the next quarter with the technology of HSDPA behind it.

O2 UK were also trialling their variant on the Isle Of Man towards the start of the year.