Industry alignment behind the definition of true ‘4G’ has moved closer following news that the ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) has chosen LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced (sometimes known as WiMAX 802.16m/Release 2) as its official technologies for the 4G standard IMT-Advanced. LTE-Advanced is the next-generation version of LTE (which itself is only just starting to be commercially deployed but is due for widespread rollout globally from next year) from the 3GPP camp, and takes the official technology name of LTE Release 10 & Beyond. WirelessMAN-Advanced is the next-generation version of WiMAX 802.16e (which is in commercial deployment from the likes of Clearwire and Sprint) from the IEEE camp. Today’s announcement from the ITU-R is significant as it could help overcome confusion in the market as to what qualifies as a true 4G technology; to date WiMAX 802.16e operators have incorrectly marketed their services as 4G, while T-Mobile USA and others have marketed HSPA+ services (a ‘step’ behind LTE networks) as 4G. The key characteristics of IMT-Advanced are believed to be downlink speeds of 100 Mb/s in the wide area with high mobility and 1 Gbit/s in low-mobility scenarios; low latency at less than 10 millisecond roundtrip delay; and very wide spectrum bandwidths of up to 100 MHz.

The two chosen 4G technologies – LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced – “were each determined to have successfully met all of the criteria established by ITU-R for the first release of IMT-Advanced,” according to an ITU statement. Final approval is expected by ITU Member States at the ITU-R Study Group 5 meeting in Geneva in late November 2010. Although the ITU said that six candidate submissions were initially assessed for approval as an official 4G technology, the organisation was keen to point out that all six proposals were aligned around LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced. “These technologies will now move into the final stage of the IMT-Advanced process, which provides for the development in early 2012 of an ITU-R Recommendation specifying the in-depth technical standards for these radio technologies,” added the ITU statement.