Just when you thought you’d got your head around the concept of 3G, up pops 4G. Now, we all knew that 4G was around the corner, but here’s one of the big boys, Sony Ericsson, making an announcement about their first commercial deployment, in conjunction with Baltic telecoms provider TeliaSonera, of the interface known as Long Term Evolution (LTE).

What’s LTE you might ask, so here’s a bit of techno blurb from Sony Ericsson: “The LTE system is based on 3GPP standards for LTE radio technology and System Architecture Evolution (SAE) core technology.”

None the wiser, no nor me, but basically the LTE system is the basis for the Sony Ericsson 4G network. So forget LTE and SAE (I thought SAE stood for stamp addressed envelope) and concentrate on the 4G bit. And for all of you that don’t know what 4G is, have a look at the article, as it will give you some background.

Right, so 4G is better than 3G. In fact, it’s a lot, lot better and will, they claim, mean that we will get the type of the mobile network we want: a super fast one and one that can actually handle all the data we insist on pushing through our mobiles.

Now, the cynics amongst you might say well, I thought 3G was the ultimate. But, unfortunately, as so often happens with technology, the marketing boys are usually way ahead of their products’ capabilities.

But, 4G will allow you to communicate with your mates at super high speeds, meaning you can instantly react to social networking sites, read multimedia newspapers without the pauses and watch high definition television without wondering why it’s all in slow motion.

Wow, yes, but if it’s that good, what will 5G do: make the tea perhaps, walk the dog, or remember your partners birthday?

Can’t wait for that.

The next generation telecommunications network 4G may be around the corner, but that hasn’t stopped Vodafone trialing fast speeds of up to 16Mbp/s via HSPA+. HSPA+ is effectively 3.5G, not quite 4G. If you want to know more about HSPA, see the glossary of terms, but it’s there to improve speeds.

Currently, top speeds are about 7.2 Mbp/s, although its claimed that the HSDPA platform can be ramped up to 14.4Mbp/s with the wind behind it and if it’s going downhill. The HSPA+ super-fast trials were conducted alongside Ericsson, the manufacturer of telecoms infrastructure, and Qualcomm, the maker of mobile chipsets. It’s thought that speeds of up to 21Mbp/s could be reached by early 2009.

So, if speed matters, then you can look forward to HSPA+ maybe final quarter 2009, but bear in mind that you would need a new handset to take full advantage of those kind of performance figures. Ah right, another handset, of course, might have guessed that. Best send the old mobile off for cash then. But, the great advantage for the network operators, that only new software will be required to upgrade the existing network.

Now you can see why HSPA+ is so attractive as a short term measure before they have to start again with 4G networks, which are far more than just software upgrades.  For all you out there that lap up all this new technology, then please note that HSPA+ is part of the 3GPP release, standard seven. Now why you’d want to know that is beyond this writer!