Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the last step toward the 4th Generation (4G) of radio technologies designed to increase the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks. Where the current generation of mobile telecommunication networks are collectively known as 3G (for "third generation"), LTE is marketed as 4G. Most major mobile carriers in the United States and several worldwide carriers have announced plans to convert their networks to LTE not before 2011-12.

LTE standards take into account the migration of current mobile networks from voice-based services that require little bandwidth and are compatible with circuit switched wireline-type networks to Internet Protocol (IP) data services that consume huge chunks of bandwidth and demand higher priority transport. Right now data services are consumed primarily by non-phone-type devices such as laptops attached to wireless dongles and netbooks. Wireless phones deliver voice as a primary service and data as secondary, while these two services continue to operate on separate core networks – Circuit Switched (CS) core and Packet Switched (PS) core, respectively. In addition, most of the underlying transport infrastructures for existing mobile networks are based on TDM and ATM networks.

LTE is engineered for the next generation of mobile when everything, including voice, will be IP. It envisions a migratory path to voice-over-IP that starts with all-IP for bandwidth-consuming data devices and later moves to devices that will handle both voice and data as end-to-end IP streams.

The main advantages of LTE include high throughput, low latency, plug and play, FDD and TDD in the same platform, improved end-user experience and simple architecture resulting in low operating costs. LTE will also support seamless passing to cell towers with older network technology such as GSM, CDMAOne, W-CDMA (UMTS), and CDMA2000.

Click here to read more about Galtronics' research activity concerning LTE.