Is UMB the same as LTE
Recently i have come across press releases trying to sell UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) as 4G technology. This is the same as trying to sell LTE and mobile -WiMAX as a 4G technology.
IMT has taken a clever approach and instead of calling the successor of 3G as 4G, they are calling it IMT-Advanced.
The main requirements for 4G are as follows:
- Peak data rate of 100Mbps for high mobility applications such as mobile access
- Approx. 1Gbps for low mobility applications such as nomadic/local wireless access
Doing some digging on the UMB topic, i realised that it is the same as LTE but an evolution from CDMA2000. This is being standardised by 3GPP2.
Some of the key features (and comparing it with LTE) includes:
- It used OFDMA based air interface (same as LTE)
- It supports FDD (LTE supports FDD and TDD and a combination of them so i am not sure if UMB only supports FDD)
- Scalable b/w of 1.25MHz to 20MHz (same as LTE)
- MIMO and Beamforming (Same as LTE but UMB also supports 4x4 antennas whereas LTE supports 2x2)
- Data speeds upto 275Mbps in DL and 75Mbps in UL (LTE has 144Mbps in DL and 57Mbps in UL but that is because of 2x2 MIMO)
Since the term 4G is already being abused so much, one option is to let people use 4G as they wish and then when IMT-Advanced is available, start calling it 5G. What do you think?
Sumber : 3G and 4G Wireless Blog
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