4G technology is slowly but steadily gaining ground in India and several telecom operators are rolling out their 4G LTE services in India currently. 4G LTE is still in its nascent stages, but it is going to be a market changer if hits the sweet spot for both consumer and service providers. Let’s try to understand what 4G LTE is and what is the current situation in the country.
Why 4G
The only difference is the Speed that the user gets. While 3G networks ideally offers anything between 3 Mbps to about 21 Mbps, however in real world scenarios the speeds are much lower and companies claim that the peak speeds are achieved in ideal scenarios. To overcome this TRAI had to intervene and had to set a minimum 1 Mbps download speed for 3G which itself tells you the story. Hence the need to high speed mobile internet arises.
What is 4G, LTE and the difference between 4G and LTE
4G (fourth Generation) is successor to 3G technology, offering data transfer speeds of up to 100 Mbps, but typical speeds will be in the range of 12 – 15 Mbps. 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) is one of the several competing 4G standards (some other being with Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and WiMax).
Current 4g Service providers :
Airtel was the first company to start 4G service in India and it has 1800 MHz spectrum in all big circles except for Maharashtra, UP East and UP West. Vodafone, Idea have now followed by launching their 4G services and state run BSNL planning to launch 4G in 2nd Quarter of 2016, however the major disruption is expected to happen once Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio launches its operations across the country. As of now cost of 4 is still one a higher side and connectivity is still as concern in a lot of areas. It would be interesting to see what impact does Reliance Jio has on the market as it is expected to launch commercially in April 2016.
