The fourth generation network is becoming more and more interesting for active Internet users. Still: 4G provides the ability to "fly" over the network at astronomical speeds. The know-how has only one drawback. 4G fully works, today, only in the territories of Canada and the United States.
The name "4G" (fourth generation) was coined by marketers. It is quite logical, because how else can the communication system following 3G be called? The "native" name of the new network is LTE. The decoding sounds like "Long term evolution", namely - "long-term evolution". It appeared almost simultaneously with 3G. When the developers finalized the third generation, which was called "short-term evolution" among themselves, a small group separated from them. Its task was to find an answer to the question: what to do when subscribers want speeds that 3G cannot provide? Hence the "long-term evolution" - LTE arose. An LTE base station consists of a conventional set of hardware. It contains a transceiver (TRX), interface cards and a special block for digital signal processing - BBU. The radio modules are mounted very close to the antenna, and they are connected to the processing unit using optical communication. The base module for 4G operation differs little from stations for other communication standards. Therefore, the manufacturers decided to make three in one. That is, one station will operate for three different standards: 3G, 4G and GSM. Such a convenient solution is called SingleRan. LTE does not require any special antennas or an access network controller. The convenience of "long-term evolution" also lies in the fact that its operation does not require any specific frequency range. Standard radio equipment for the implementation of 4G networks for over 30 bands. The most promising, today, are considered: 800 MHz, 2, 5 MHz and 1800 MHz. The first and second are actively working or planned in all European countries, including Russia, as well as in Asian countries. The third is good because able to provide a balance between coverage and capacity. For these three ranges, equipment is produced by almost all major manufacturers. To date, providers from Sweden have made timid attempts to organize 4G operations in Europe. But there was no talk about unrealistic speeds: the signal was constantly disappearing and was very slow, fluctuating from 0 to 8 Mbps. The developers, in their own defense, said that they have not yet managed to fully optimize the network, and very few base stations have been installed. In Russia, Megafon and Yota are actively working on the implementation of the 4G network.
