What is 4G LTE?

The much talked about Apple iPhone 5 is expected to carry a technology known as 4G LTE, a fourth generation wireless standard.

What is LTE? It is the abbreviation for Long Term Evolution. The fourth generation (4G) technology promises speeds of a fixed-line over the wireless networks which make 3G speeds a thing in the past. Developed by 3rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) and specified in its Release 8, 4G LTE is a wireless standard for mobile smartphones and data terminals. It increases the capacity and speed using a different radio interface and provides other improvements.

The LTE service was first introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 2004. By December 2008, the LTE standard was finalized. The first publicly available LTE service was released by TeliaSonera in Oslo and Stockholm in December 2009 as a data connection with a USB modem. The Verizon Wireless launched a large public LTE service in 2010 in the North America and by 2011 it became a standard for mobile smartphones. By March 2011, all standards for LTE service have been finalized. Today LTE is expected to be the only standard for global mobile smartphone service. In March 2012, more than 50 companies held patents covering the LTE service.