What 4G Means for Business

Here’s a quick technical snapshot and reality check on what 4G means for business. When we talk 4G, we are referring to the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. For business users, we are being promised new capabilities and faster speeds. For a number of reasons it will not happen overnight. The reality is that carriers haven’t all decided what they are going to standardize on and there are two main standards- LTE and WiMAX. Rogers has said they are trialing the technology and Bell says they’ll also do it. And ‘trialing’ is a long way from commercial deployment. Still, the promise is that 4G will offer a faster, more robust wireless experience than even the current wireline broadband access. For business users, these higher data speeds could make smartphones much more comparable to PCs to get needed information when you’re on the go:

· The announcements indicate 4G could be rolling out in 12 to 24 months, but please take this with a grain of salt. You might remember that 3G was touted in early 2000 yet it didn’t actually get deployed for several years and full deployment after that.

· For wireless, 4G offers some pretty stunning speeds. Sprint in the U.S. have installed 4G and are showing averaging speeds of 3 to 6 megabits per second, and bursts hitting 10 Mbps.

· 4G enables users with cell devices to do virtually anything they would do using their desktops currently at home.

· 4G also plays into the wireless carriers eliminating the wireline phones. Cellular in recent years have taken over landlines as the dominant form of telecommunications. With 4G, this could be the death knell for that plugged device in the wall.

The good news is that Bell and Rogers have chosen LTE, but other carriers have not announced their plans yet so we don’t know if all the carriers will be going one way or the other (Sprint in the U.S. went WiMAX, Verizon went LTE). And there is a rather big downside- you will need a new cell phone (different standards). Estimates vary on when these will be available. It's not known when Apple will introduce an iPhone for the technology and RIM have not announced when they will have Blackberries ready. So if you want the higher speeds, you will have to wait for the upgrade. Being locked in to 2 and 3 year contracts could make for a longer wait as well.

The bottom line is that faster speeds are finally coming which is good news for the frustrated mobile worker. You just need patience, and maybe pay more, for getting the benefits that 4G offers.