6. FEATURES of 4G 4G refers to the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to 3G and 2G families of standards.

A 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based solution where facilities such as IP telephony Internet access, gaming services and streamed multimedia may be provided to users. A 4G cellular system must have target peak data rates of up to approximately 100 Mbps for high mobility such as mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbps for low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access, according to the ITU requirements. Scalable bandwidths up to at least 40 MHz should be provided. 4G is being developed to accommodate the QoS and rate requirements set by further development of existing 3G applications like mobile

broadband access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), video chat, mobile TV, but also new services like HDTV. 4G may allow roaming with wireless local area networks, and may interact with digital video broadcasting systems. The objectives of the 4G wireless communication standard are: Flexible channel bandwidth, between 5 and 20 MHz, optionally up to 40 MHz. A nominal data rate of 100 Mbps while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbps while client and station are in relatively fixed positions as defined by the ITU-R. A data rate of at least 100 Mbps between any two points in

the world. High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio, high speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV, etc.) Different 4G feature frameworks have been defined from the standpoints of service subscriber, service provider, researcher and engineer. In the following some representatives of 4G perspectives are given. 1) It is easy to say, based on the developing trends of mobile communication, that 4G will have broader bandwidth, higher data rate, smoother and quicker handoff, wider mobile area, more various service, lower cost, etc. Other than the words more, any and/or all are preferred over expressions used by previous generations, e.g. anyone can communicate with anyone else, anywhere and anytime or enjoy any service of any network operator, through any network of any network provider. 4) European Commission (EC) presented a perspective focusing on ensuring seamless service provisioning across a multitude of wireless systems and networks, and providing for optimum delivery via the most efficient network available e.g. private systems and ad-hoc networks, optimal resource utilization, multiple radio interfaces, WLAN use, standards for interoperability etc. Thus 4G will encompass all systems from public to private, operator driven to Adhoc, broadband to personal area and Ad-hoc networks. We can summarize proposal of 4G features with one sentence, or even more simply, with one word: integration, i.e. seamless integration of terminals, networks, and applications (together with users).

1) The discussion domain includes three relevant targets, i.e. terminals, networks, and applications. Out of the 4G domain, the user is the only target. 2) The kernel word of the definition is so-called integration, which means the convergence of first the three different targets; second the various modes of each target, which lead to the feature of diversity.

7. TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE

It is obvious that 4G, just like all the previous generations, is driven not only by technology, but also by market requirements. This section mainly discusses, from a more technical perspective, possible topics for research and promising techniques of 4G, and focuses mainly on those techniques that give support to the main feature of adaptability by internal diversity of targets in the 4G domain.

Terminals In order to adapt to the diverse applications and networks, together with the various requirements of users, the terminal domain must possess both internal and external diversity. Support techniques of the field may include the following: 1) User interfaces of terminals vary from traditional keyboard, display, and tablet, to new interfaces based on speech, touch, vision, soft buttons, etc. This will be common at a time when one terminal has multiple user interfaces. 2) Adaptive techniques such as smart antennas, software radio, and smart transceivers, enhance interoperability through simultaneous support of several radio interfaces in a single terminal. This makes a terminal roamable across any air interface standard and connectable to any wireless access point by exchanging configuration software. These approaches can also be used on wireless access points as an advanced smart base station.

3) An intelligent terminal is able to dynamically improve its processing capability in order to contain various services. Some function modules can even be downloaded to A terminal when needed. Networks More advances in networks are needed to keep pace with the rapidly changing terminals and applications, as follows: 1) Smart antenna, software radio, together with advanced base station are the key techniques to achieve adaptability of wireless access points to diverse terminals, i.e. to make radio systems and air networks reconfigurable. 2) Network layer hierarchical mobility management based on Mobile IPv6 and Cellular IP brings quick and seamless handoff to terminals. The Mobile IPv6 also presents a great contribution to the adaptability of heterogeneous networks. 3) Applications that transmit data while the user is moving using Hotspots area are also being developed. Hotspots are certain areas in which data is received at a higher rate. So when the user passes through this hotspot, the data packets intended to him are transmitted at a very fast rate. This can also be considered on a system of HSDPA designed on H2. Applications Adaptability will be one of the basic requirements to the development and

delivery of new mobile services. Promising techniques and possible topics may include: 1) Mobile application should refer to a users profile so that it can be delivered in a way most preferred by the subscriber, such as contextbased personalized services. This also brings the applications with adaptability to terminals that are moving in varying locations and speeds. Micro-sensors and GPS receivers are the main driven techniques. 2) Techniques such as adaptive multimedia and unified messaging take the terminal characteristics into account and ensure that the service can be received and run on a terminal with host type. the most suitable form to the

3) Intelligent mobile software agent is a common technique to all of the three targets, which act as a platform for service development, delivery, and auto-configuration. Applications can negotiate with networks so that they can be transferred with the most efficient channel, e.g. indoor networks or WLAN or cellular systems in a wide area. Services will be tailorable in order to fit the different network environments 8.

8. KEY 4G TECHNOLOGIES Some of the key technologies required for 4G are briefly described below: OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) not only provides clear advantages for physical layer performance, but also a framework for improving layer performance by proposing an additional degree of freedom. Using ODFM, it is possible to exploit the time domain, the space domain, the frequency domain and even the code domain to optimize radio channel usage. It ensures very robust transmission in multi-path environments with reduced receiver complexity. OFDM also provides a frequency diversity gain, improving the physical layer performance. It is also compatible with other enhancement technologies, such as smart antennas and MIMO. OFDM modulation can also be employed as a multiple access technology (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access; OFDMA). In this case, each OFDM symbol can transmit information to/from several users using a different set of sub carriers (sub channels). This not only provides additional flexibility for resource allocation (increasing the capacity), but also enables cross-layer optimization of radio link usage. SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO Software Defined Radio (SDR) benefits from todays high processing power to develop multi-band, multi-standard base stations and terminals. Although in future the terminals will adapt the air interface to the

available radio access technology, at present this is done by the infrastructure. Several infrastructure gains are expected from SDR. For example, to increase network capacity at a specific time (e.g. during a sports event), an operator will reconfigure its network adding several modems at a given Base Transceiver Station (BTS). SDR makes this reconfiguration easy. In the context of 4G systems, SDR will become an enabler for the aggregation of multi-standard pico/micro cells. For a manufacturer, this can be a powerful aid to providing multi-standard, multi-band equipment with reduced development effort and costs through simultaneous multi-channel processing.

MULTIPLE - INPUT MULTIPLE - OUTPUT MIMO uses signal multiplexing between multiple transmitting antennas (space multiplex) and time or frequency. It is well suited to OFDM, as it is possible to process independent time symbols as soon as the OFDM waveform is correctly designed for the channel. This aspect of OFDM greatly simplifies processing. The signal transmitted by m antennas is received by n antennas. Processing of the received signals may deliver several performance improvements: range quality of received signal spectrum efficiency In principle, MIMO is more efficient when many multiple path signals are received. The performance in cellular deployments is still subject to research and simulations. However, it is generally admitted that the

gain in spectrum efficiency is directly related to the minimum number of antennas in the link. HANDOVER AND MOBILITY Handover technologies based on mobile IP technology have been considered for data and voice. Mobile IP techniques are slow but can be accelerated with classical methods (hierarchical, fast mobile IP).

9. 4G CHALLENGES

Analysis of the underlying technical challenges raised by the above vision and its five elements has produced three research areas: Networks and services Software based systems Wireless access Networks and Services The aim of 3G is to provide multimedia multirate mobile communications anytime and anywhere, though this aim can only be partially met. It will be uneconomic to meet this requirement with cellular mobile radio only. 4G will extend the scenario to an all-IP network (access + core) that integrates broadcast, cellular, cordless, WLAN (wireless local area network), short-range systems and fixed wire. The vision is of integration across these networkair interfaces and of a variety of radio environments on a common, flexible and expandable platform a network of networks with distinctive radio access connected to a seamless IP-based core network (Fig. 3).

The functions contained in this vision will be: a connection layer between the radio access and the IP core including mobility management internetworking between access schemes inter and intra system, handover, QoS negotiations, security and mobility ability to interface with a range of new and existing radio interfaces Network reconfigurability is a means of achieving the above scenario. This encompasses terminal reconfigurability, which enables the terminal to roam across the different air interfaces by exchanging configuration software (derived from the software radio concept). It also provides dynamic service flexibility and trading of access across the different networks by dynamically optimising the network nodes in the end-to- end connection. This involves reconfiguration of protocol stacks, programmability of network nodes and reconfigurability of base stations and terminals. The requirement is for a distributed reconfiguration control. Fig. 5 demonstrates both internal node and external network reconfigurability.

For internal reconfiguration the functionality of the network nodes must be controlled before, during and after reconfiguration and compliance to transmission standards and regulations must be facilitated. External reconfiguration management is required to monitor traffic, to ensure that the means for transport between terminals and network gateways (or other end points) are synchronised (e.g. by conforming to standards) and to ensure that the databases/content servers needed for downloadable reconfiguration software are provided. The research challenges are to provide mechanisms to implement internal and external configuration, to define and identify application programming interfaces (APIs) and to design mechanisms to ensure that reconfigured network nodes comply with regulatory standards. An example of evolved system architectures is a combination of ad hoc and cellular topologies. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is an autonomous system of mobile routers (and connected hosts) connected by wireless links. The routing and hosts are

free to move randomly and organise themselves arbitrarily; thus the network wireless topology can change rapidly. Such a network can exist in a stand-alone form or be connected to a larger internet (as shown in Fig. 6).