What You Need to Know About 4G+/LTE-A!

Hei MIUI-ers,

This is my second series of ifelixit and we are going to discuss about, What is 4G+, 4GX, XLTE, LTE-A and VoLTE? Probably most of us doesn't bother or keep track of how fast the technology evolved. Today, we are going touch on LTE-A aka 4.5G or marketed as 4G+. Hence, what the benefit of it for us users or subscribers.

LTE Advanced (4G+) is the next major step in the evolution of our 4G network technology that's expected to support the massive increases in mobile data demand and deliver much higher data speeds for all. 4G+ is another name for LTE-A, LTE-Advanced or 4.5G and it’s basically a faster version of 4G and LTE . It’s a new generation network, designed to meet the growing demand for data traffic, support better quality and increased speeds and offer wider opportunities for use. It allows 4G phones to receive data from multiple bands in the 4G spectrum. So, while standard 4G only uses one band at a time, 4G+ can combine two and more bands for far more increased speeds. Ucom uses 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands at a time.

The speed of 4G and 4G+:
4G+ supports maximum 250Mbps download speed and 50Mbps upload speed, that is, far faster than 4G speed. For better understanding, if a 30 minute HD video takes just 2-3 minutes to download on 4G+, it would take 8-12 minutes to download with standard 4G.

There’s no hard and fast answer as to how speedy LTE-A is. Theoretical peak download speeds stand at around 300Mbps whilst standard 4G LTE stands at 150Mbps. Having said that you’ll likely find that the real world download speeds of 4G normally top out at around 15Mbps, as other factors such as the device you’re using it on, your proximity to a 4G mast and how many other people are on the network all drastically affect the speeds. Similarly you’re not likely to get consistent LTE-A speeds of 300Mbps, but it’s still likely to deliver consistent real world speeds of over 42Mbps and up to 90Mbps, making it at least 3 times faster than standard 4G LTE speeds.

With 4G+ You’ll have: 

• Better quality for watching videos online. For example, with 4G+ we can watch a 720p HD video on YouTube, while with 3G we can only watch a 360p video. Furthermore, with 4G+ any file, be it a movie, game or program, is downloaded 2.5 and more times fast.

• Advantage over the opponent during online gaming. If You spend much time on online gaming, Your chances of winning will increase due to faster connection.
• Faster download speeds. You can download any content 10 times faster. Thanks to 4G+, it takes around 30-60 seconds to download a content of 1000MB, while it takes 9-30 minutes with 3G.

How does it work?
Essentially while standard data connections use one antenna and one signal at any given time, 4G LTE-A uses multiple signals and multiples antennas.

It uses MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology to combine multiple antennas on both the transmitter (for example 4G masts) and the receiver (for example a smartphone). So a 2x2 MIMO configuration would mean there were two antennas on the transmitter and two on the receiver and you don’t have to stop at two, the more antennas theoretically the faster the potential speeds as the data streams can travel more efficiently.

That technology is then combined with ‘carrier aggregation’, which allows a device, such as a smartphone, to receive multiple different 4G signals at once and they don’t even have to be on the same frequency, so you could receive an 1800MHz and an 800MHz signal at the same time for example, none of which is possible with standard 4G. Up to five different signals can be combined at once and with each offering up to 20MHz of bandwidth they can be combined to create a data pipe of up to 100MHz of bandwidth. The upshot of all that is that it’s faster than standard 4G, a lot faster.

What’s next?
LTE-A not fast enough for you? Well this is a fast moving industry and people are always looking ahead. So much so that 5G is already in development. The term ‘5G’ literally just means that it’s the fifth generation of mobile wireless systems and you can expect it to be a big jump. The specifics are still being worked out and it’s unlikely to be commercially deployed before 2020, but talk at the moment is that it will theoretically allow for data speeds of up to 10Gbps, which is just a mind boggling number.

What phones work with it?
Not only might you have to wait a while to get LTE-A if you're not on the right Telco or not in a major city, but you might have to get a new phone. Standard 4G phones don’t support it and you simply need to check the specification of the network bands supported.

 
Many newer handsets, particularly high-end ones, such as the Mi 6, Mi Note 2 down to mid-range Redmi Note 4/4X support for inline carrier aggregation 4G+ network only, but most older and lower end handsets don't. The good news is that over time more and more smartphones will arrive with LTE-A support and as it becomes more widespread it should start filtering down to low end devices too.

Source1, Source2

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