What Does LTE Mean?

Long Term Evolution: The fastest wireless 4G network

Long Term Evolution, or LTE, is a 4G wireless broadband standard that replaces previous technologies like WiMax and 3G. It’s faster than 3G but slower than both true 4G and 5G, the current wireless standard.

LTE is used by mobile devices like smartphones and tablets instead of a wireless (Wi-Fi) connection. As with 3G or 4G, LTE is a technology standard that determines how mobile devices connect to the internet from cellular towers.

LTE is largely a marketing term meant to signify progress toward 4G. There isn’t an international regulatory body that rules on what is and isn’t LTE or 4G. So, telecom companies often use the terms interchangeably. However, LTE’s actual technical specifications fall short of 4G speeds.

LTE Benefits

Despite being slower than true 4G, LTE is an improvement over older technologies and mobile broadband standards. Compared with 3G, LTE offers:

• Higher bandwidth (faster connection speeds).
• A better underlying technology for voice calls (VoIP) and multimedia streaming.
• Low data transfer latency.
• More scalability, allowing for more devices to connect to an access point at a time.
• Refined for voice calls through the use of Voice over LTE (VoLTE).

How to Use LTE

You need two things to take advantage of LTE: a phone and a mobile network that supports it.

This means you need to make sure your device is LTE compatible. Not all devices contain the necessary hardware to connect to an LTE network. You can be confident that new phones do, but older models may not.

LTE phones might be called 4G LTE. If your phone doesn’t work on an LTE network, you may need to upgrade your device or settle for slower-than-LTE speeds.

Beyond the phone, you’ll need access to a wireless service provider—either a mobile carrier or a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). These companies deliver the LTE technology to your device. You need to be within an LTE coverage area to use the service.

A misleading marketing term, LTE often does not correspond to expectations. Before buying a smartphone or any other device, read reviews, check testers’ verdicts, and pay attention to the actual LTE performance of the device.

History of LTE

3G was an improvement over 2G, but it lacked the speed required of the smartphone revolution. The International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R), the body that sets mobile broadband connections and speeds, introduced an upgraded set of wireless communication specifications in 2008. The new standard would satisfy the needs of newer technologies like VoIP, media streaming, video conferencing, high-speed data transfers, and real-time collaboration.

This set specification was named 4G, meaning fourth generation, and speed was one of the main improvements.

A 4G network could, according to these specifications, deliver speeds of up to 100 Mbps during motion, like in a car or train, and up to 1 Gbps when stationary. These were high targets. Since the ITU-R had no say in implementing such standards, it had to relax the rules so that new technologies could be considered 4G despite failing to reach these speeds. The market followed with devices labeled 4G LTE.

4G/LTE remains the most prevalent standard throughout the world. Still, more and more devices and networks are equipped for 5G. 5G offers several improvements over both 4G and LTE but faces challenges to widespread adoption.

What is LTE?

Mobile operators continue to upgrade their networks, and many Lumia devices are equipped with 4G LTE-enabled standards. But what exactly is LTE and what does it mean for you?

LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution.” It’s a 4G (fourth generation) wireless broadband technology developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), an industry trade group.

Wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon offer 4G and 4G LTE networking standards and are slowly replacing older 3G (third generation) data networks.

A recent report by Open Signal claims that 4G LTE download speed is more than five times faster than 3G–a major leap forward in wireless technology. This advanced technology is supported by the new Lumia 640 and Lumia 640 XL LTE Dual SIM and other Lumia smartphones such as the Lumia 635, Lumia 830, Lumia 925, Lumia 1020, Lumia 1520, Lumia 638 and Lumia 735.

Simply put, with a 4G LTE* enabled Lumia, you get uninterrupted and smooth streaming of live video and you can enjoy online multiplayer games as well. Find the best 4G LTE Lumia smartphone by checking out this recent story.

You should also know that Lumia smartphones have the option to change the “highest connection speed” according to our needs and the services offered in a specific region.

For instance, in India, the average mobile phone owner uses a 2G data connection, though people in some states have the option to subscribe to 4G. In the United States and the United Kingdom, connecting via 4G is more common.

Whatever your network or plan, you can choose your connectivity speed. Under Settings, select “cellular+SIM” and select “3G or 4G” depending on your Lumia.

An even speedier 5G connection may be available in the next few years.

Last month, researchers at the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) achieved record-breaking speeds of one terabit per second (Tbps) during their testing of 5G data connections. The head of the 5GIC stated that he hopes to demonstrate 5G technology to the public in 2018!

Which Lumia do you use to stay connected to the world?

*Data-transfer speeds vary due to factors like the carrier and coverage area.

What is LTE? Everything you need to know

Social media, video streaming, online gaming, you name it, our smartphones are better connected than ever and we’re consuming more and more data as a result. 4G LTE isn’t the new name in town anymore, that title now belongs to 5G networks that are rolling out in countries across the globe. Still, 4G remains the backbone of most consumer’s day-to-day data needs and is still much faster speeds than the previous 3G and 2G standards. But what is 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE), exactly?

In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how LTE works, the hardware associated with it, its benefits, and how this all relates to the smartphone in your pocket.

What is LTE and how does it work?

At the most basic level, 4G LTE is the successor to 3G networks. The most notable differences between LTE and its predecessors are the changes in frequency and bandwidth usage. With 3G, the 2100MHz band was the main global frequency, with a 900MHz option for longer range coverage. There are many more 4G LTE bands, the use of which will vary depending on your country and even your specific carrier. Popular spectrum includes the 800, 1800, and 2600 MHz bands, with 700, 1900, and 2300 used by a few carriers also.

With 4G LTE, these frequencies are split into Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) and Time Division Duplexing (TDD). FDD spectrum requires pair bands, one for uplink and one for downlink. TDD uses a single band as uplink and downlink on the same frequency, but these are time-separated instead. There are 31 pairs of LTE bands that operate between 452 MHz and 3,600 MHz and an additional 12 TDD bands between 703 MHz and 3,800 MHz. Higher frequencies allow for faster transmission in built-up areas, while lower frequencies offer additional coverage distance but more limited bandwidth. These bands typically offer between 10 and 20 MHz of bandwidth for data transfer, although they are also commonly split up into smaller 1.4, 3, and 5 MHz chunks too.

FDD is the LTE variation that is regularly seen in North American, European, and some Asian markets. TDD has been implemented in China and India as the wider bandwidth allows for more users per Mhz. This is why you should always be careful to double-check LTE bands and carrier compatibility when importing phones from other countries.

LTE uses two different radio links for downlink and uplink — from tower to device and vice versa. For the downlink, LTE uses an OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access), which requires MIMO. MIMO, which stands for Multiple Input Multiple Output, uses two or more antennas to reduce latency significantly and boost speeds within a given channel. Standard LTE can accommodate up to a 4×4 arrangement (the first digit is the number of transmit antennas, and the second, the number of receive antennas). For the uplink (from device to tower), LTE uses an SC-FDMA (single carrier frequency division multiple access) signal. SC-FDMA is better for uplink because it has a better peak-to-average power ratio.

There’s a lot to the underlying technology. But in a nutshell, 4G LTE enables more spectrum bands to provide more bandwidth than 3G. This results in higher data speeds and better quality connections than previous generations.

What is LTE Advanced and how does it work?

Standard 4G LTE is outdated now. Modern 4G networks are based on LTE-Advanced technology. As the name implies, LTE-Advanced is simply an evolved version of current LTE connectivity, using a variety of additional techniques to warrant the “advanced” name. The new functionalities introduced in LTE-Advanced are Carrier Aggregation (CA), better use of existing multi-antenna techniques (MIMO), and support for Relay Nodes. All of these are designed to increase the stability, bandwidth, and speed of LTE networks and connections.

We’ve also seen the arrival of LTE-Advanced Pro — also known as Gigabit LTE in some markets — (3GPP Release 13 and up). So how does this differ from standard LTE-A?

Carrier Aggregation is the key to faster data with LTE-Advanced

The key to faster data via LTE-Advanced is the introduction of 8×8 MIMO in the downlink and 4×4 in the uplink, and the use of multiple carrier bands aggregated together to improve signal strength and bandwidth. Carrier aggregation sends and receives data over multiple bands, increasing the amount of throughput for faster speeds. Each LTE band has a bandwidth of either 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, giving us a maximum bandwidth of 100 MHz with five combined. Although this will vary depending on the bandwidth available in your particular area.

LTE-Advanced Pro/Gigabit LTE touts carrier aggregation with up to 32 component carriers. Theoretically, these provide a maximum download speed of approximately 3.3 Gbps and 1.5 Gbps upload. However, the hardware modem found inside your smartphone probably isn’t quite that fast and network coverage certainly isn’t good enough to meet that criteria outside of specialized areas.

Another important part of the LTE-Advanced puzzle is quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). This technique essentially crams more bits of information into the signal sent from a tower to your phone. Higher QAM delivers more information in a signal and thus faster speeds. We’ve previously seen 64QAM being used in LTE-A, but LTE-Advanced networks from the likes of Verizon, T-Mobile and others use 256QAM too. This particular version of QAM dramatically boosts bandwidth and, much like massive MIMO, is another foundational technology used in 5G. In fact, Qualcomm says 256QAM boosts download speeds by 33 percent over 64QAM.

How fast is LTE?

Now that we’ve outlined what LTE is, how fast is it?

For starters, the quality and speed of your connection varies based on the number of users and the strength of the signal in your area. According to research from OpenSignal, the leading 25 countries offer several 4G download speeds of 37Mbps with 10Mbps uploads. The fastest 4G LTE countries boast up to 150 Mbps download speeds on average, although that’s still a rarity for most consumers. On a

For comparison, older 3G networks can vary quite widely in their actual results. HSPA networks can peak at around 14 Mbps download and 6 Mbps upload, but they rarely come close to this. Typically, a good LTE network is at least 5 to 10 times faster than the best 3G coverage.

The tech inside your phone

“What is LTE?” is just part of the puzzle. There’s more to this technology. As you have probably figured out, 4G has been an evolving standard and it continues to change as we move towards a future with 5G technology. As such, the hardware inside our smartphones has changed over the years to keep pace with faster LTE networks.

To keep things relatively simple, user equipment is split into a number of different categories, each designed to offer a set of features and speeds based on a specification release. This is often the number that you’ll see listed on a smartphone specification sheet. Release 10 introduced the speed and MIMO improvements that come with LTE-Advanced, but there are newer Releases for Category 16 and beyond for 5G. Here’s a comparison of how some of them break down.

Max Download	Max Upload	MIMO Config.	Release #
Category 4	150Mbps	51Mbps	2	8
Category 6	300Mbps	51Mbps	2 or 4	10
Category 9	450Mbps	51Mbps	2 or 4	11
Cateogy 10	450Mbps	102Mbps	2 or 4	12
Cateogy 12	600Mbps	102Mbps	2 or 4	12
Cateogy 15	3.9Gbps	1.5Gbps	8	12

Mobile SoC manufacturers bundle 4G modems with their processing components into the main chip, as it is such an essential technology. For example, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 features the company’s own X60 modem that supports both 5G and 4G standards. In the mid and premium tiers of 2021’s smartphone market, it’s increasingly rare to find 4G-only smartphones.

The road to 5G

The roll-out of fast 4G networks isn’t over yet. There are still many more customers to bring online and infrastructure to improve across the globe. Even legacy technologies are set to stick around for a good while yet. 4G adoption is set to hit almost nine billion devices in 2020, even though the industry is adopting 5G connectivity.

5G is really another evolutionary step that started with 4G. Just like LTE-Advanced, 5G technology further increases the range of available bands, aggregating data from an even wider range of spectrum frequencies. These include sub-6GHz and very high mmWave frequencies. Just like LTE and LTE-A, 5G requires new radio technologies from carriers and new hardware inside our smartphones. These technologies became mainstream in 2020 and many millions more consumers will go online in the coming years..