With proper 4G technologies not maturing as quickly as everyone hoped, we collectively agreed to lower our expectations and start looking at what kind of speeds we could get with the 3.5G-ish technologies we’re currently using. Despite the setback, work continues on these systems that promise faster mobile data access than ever, like LTE Advanced. The Ericsson half of Sony Ericsson recently announced the results of its latest efforts with the technology, claiming a ten-fold improvement in speeds, reaching around 1Gbps.
The demonstration was performed from a moving van, avoiding any issues with claims that the speeds were only possible over a static link. Considering we’re just seeing the start of the roll-out of standard LTE, the technology will have years to mature before it reaches consumer products, by which point performance will hopefully be even more impressive.
One important detail to note of this demonstration, which may sour it a bit for you, is that it required something like six times the bandwidth currently available to an LTE user in the States. While even a limited form of LTE Advanced would still lead to higher speeds and reduced network congestion, there are clearly some RF spectrum concerns to be weighed before we can say just how fast the system will be in real-world use.
