While that 10X speed increase is not yet realized in most of the US, by middle of 2012 the new higher speeds will have touched enough markets and enough consumers to establish a new baseline for wireless broadband speed in the US. We will no longer expect web pages to load slowly on our smartphones, and we will expect video to play smoothly and at high quality.
With network performance kicked up a few notches we're naturally going to want to do with them. The wireless carriers want very much to get as many customers connected to their new 4G networks, and to lure us in they'll temp us with amazing apps than fully utilize the speeds of 4G. Consumers might begin to see these fast new apps as must-haves--like mapping apps in the 3G world.
The first wave of 4G apps being demonstrated by the wireless carriers are not wholly new things we've never seen before. They are simply apps that we traditionally use at home, now making their debut on mobile devices. These apps are always discussed and demo'd by wireless carriers during press conferences and private demos, and are often featured on web and TV ads. They are HD video, videoconferencing and online gaming.
Watching with 3G service is an experience that often includes pixilation, jerky movement and even screen freezes. The video does not have the look and feel of what we recognize as high definition on our big TVs at home. This is because 3G service cannot establish a large enough data pipe down to the end device to deliver a high number of video data packets fast enough and with minimum packet loss to create the high-definition experience on the .
Another crucial issue is packet latency, or the time (in milliseconds) that it takes for a packet of video data (in this case) to move from a server up in the network down to the end device. With 3G service latency time can be around the 150 milliseconds, which is too much drag time for high-definition streaming media like video. Mobile HD video requires a fast and steady stream of packets moving down to the end device in order to remain "HD."
In 4G networks latency time is much less. For instance, Verizon's new 4G LTE service is showing latency numbers of around 40 milliseconds. That near instantaneous send-and-receive connection between the end device and the server, combined with much higher raw data speeds, creates a video image that looks rich in color, has obvious dimension, and handles movement in a smooth, liquid way. In short, it looks like what we know as HD video.
You will notice that many (if not most) of the new 4G handsets being announced today have front-facing cameras in addition to the camera on the back. We're even beginning to see a move from one-megapixel front-facing cameras to two-megapixel cameras, to increase the quality of the video of the caller being sent upstream through the network.
is a bit different from HD video streaming in that it is a real-time bi-directional application. Like HD video streaming, videoconferencing requires a certain threshold of download speed--preferably around 1 megabit per second--to pull down the moving image of the person on the other end from a server on the network. The real challenge, however, is upload speed. Because today's networks are configured to serve up far faster download speeds than upload speeds, and because videoconferencing requires adequate downlink and uplink speeds, slow upload speeds are often the bottleneck in sub-standard videoconferencing sessions.
Thankfully, 4G networks not only offer higher download speeds but also higher upload speeds. Sprint's and Verizon's 4G networks, for example, can consistently deliver upload speeds of more than 1 mbps--enough to accommodate the uplink requirement of .
Low latency is even more important to videoconferencing than it is to HD video streaming. In our in-person communications there is very little gap between one person's talking and the other's responses. We rely on quick verbal and visual clues to know when to talk and when to listen. When this is taking place over a network, even the slightest delay in communicating these cues can cause the callers to begin talking over each other.
But again, the 4G networks of today reduce the latency of 3G networks by about two thirds. Even at 4G speeds mobile videoconferencing may not be perfect, but it's likely to be good enough for effective communication, and will probably only get better as network speeds increase and handset cameras improve.
Gamers have long imagined a day when they can play high-definition games with their friends using their mobile devices. Their time has come. The advent of 4G networks will likely spur the first generation of real-time mobile games that operate on cellular networks.
The limitations of 3G networks have confined gaming to an "asynchronous" model. These are games like Scrabble, where one player takes his turn placing a word on the board, and then the other player is notified when the network is ready for the next move. Such games don't require fast network connections or low latency rates.
But because 4G networks are able to deliver more data packets (upstream and downstream) at a more predictable rate and with less latency, a whole new class of games is becoming possible on mobile devices. The games we're used to playing on a home PC with a wired broadband connection will become possible on devices connected on a cellular network.
4G networks will be able to accommodate "synchronous" gaming--games in which players make quick moves in reaction to the moves of other players, or to the moves of a virtual opponent created by the game at the server. In a shooter game Player A might be dodging the shots fired by Player B in real time, while reacting to the evasive moves of his opponent to decide where to . In order for that quick interplay to work, players must be able to see and hear these events almost immediately when they happen.
Another (more peaceful) example is Rock Band, which was featured in a 4G demonstration by Verizon at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In the game a group of mobile players must play in unison with the music generated by the game, following visual cues on the screen. Meanwhile, they must play in unison with other (mobile) band members in real time.
These "synchronous" games rely on very fast download speeds to convey a high-definition gaming environment to the mobile device, and to communicate the movement of the game to all players quickly. Very low latency is needed to communicate the moves of the players almost instantaneously to the server and to each other. Such games also rely greatly on the reliability of the network connection; the network can compensate for a certain number of lost packets, but if too many are lost the fluidity of the game breaks down. And finally, the network must allow for very little jitter, meaning that the rate at which the packets flow back and forth between the players and the server remains relatively constant and does not slow down and speed up drastically.
That's a lot to ask of a radio network with no wires.
Today 4G networks are far from ubiquitous in the US. And the 4G network technology the mobile carriers are currently building out represent but the earliest stages of the evolution of the technology. It will be the mass appeal of mobile apps like HD video streaming, video conferencing and gaming that will accelerate the arrival and improvement of 4G service. Don't be too surprised if these apps have become mainstream by the end of 2013.