16-08-2014, 01:47 PM
EMINAR REPORT ON 4G- A NEW ERA IN WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATION
4G- A NEW ERA.pdf (Size: 194.18 KB / Downloads: 124)
ABSTRACT
4G – “connect anytime, anywhere, anyhow” promising
ubiquitous network access at high speed to the end users,
has been a topic of great interest especially for the wireless
telecom industry. 4G seems to be the solution for the
growing user requirements of wireless broadband access
and the limitations of the existing wireless communication
system. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview
of the different aspects of 4G which includes its features, its
proposed architecture and key technological enablers. It
also elaborates on the roadblocks in its implementations. A
special consideration has been given to the security
concerns of 4G by discussing a security threat analysis
model proposed by International Telecommunication
Union (ITU). By applying this model, a detailed analysis of
threats to 4G and the corresponding measures to counter
them can be performed.
WHY THE LEAP TOWARDS 4G
The vision which considers 4G as an extension to 3G
cellular services is called as the linear 4G vision [2]. But
the extent of 4G capabilities goes beyond the cellular
services. Envisioning 4G as high speed delivery of services
via the most efficient network available from the pool of
wireless networks is called as the concurrent 4G vision [2].
One of the major reasons of 3G being unable to repeat the
success story of 2G was the provision of only few
additional services over 2G. It was not encouraging enough
for the customer’s to change their equipments. Paper [2]
suggests a user-centric approach for the design of 4G to
avoid mismatch between the user’s expectations and the
services provided by 4G. Using the discussion in paper [2-
5], features of 4G which cater to the end-user’s
expectations and the problems of the current generation
networks can be listed as follows:
4G NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
Figure 1 shows the widely accepted 4G network
structure with IP as the core network used for
communication; integrating the 2G, 3G and 4G
technologies using a convergence layer [4]. before the communication activity. This layer also
performs the task of congestion control, packet
scheduling and packet classification
KEY 4G TECHNOLOGIES
This section provides a brief description of the key
technologies which would enable 4G implementation based
on the discussion in [7-11]. They are discussed as follows:
OFDMA
OFDMA can be used for the downlink transmission
(signal transmission from the base station to mobile
terminal) of the symbols for achieving high spectral
efficiency. It provides high performance on full bandwidth
usage.
CHALLENGES IN 4G
Paper [13] groups challenges faced in the migration to
4G into three different aspects and discusses them in detail
as follows:
Mobile station:
• Multimode user terminal
Multimode user terminal is a device working in
different modes supporting a wide variety of 4G
services and wireless networks by reconfiguring
themselves to adapt to different wireless networks.
They encounter several design issues such as
limitations in the device size, cost, power consumption
and backward compatibility to systems. One possible
solution to this is the use of SDR which adapts itself to
the wireless interface of the network. Figure 4 shows
4G SECURITY THREAT ANALYSIS
Amidst the concerns of technology, devices,
architecture for 4G; security has not received much
attention although being an important parameter for its
marketing among the end users. Paper [14] discusses the
security aspect of 4G in detail. A region may be connected
by multiple Radio Access Network (RAN). One of the
governing factors for selecting an appropriate RAN will be
the security features provided by the network.
CONCLUSION
The advent of 4G is sure to revolutionize the field
of telecommunication domain bringing the wireless
experience to a completely new level. It would provide
wealth of features and services making the world a smaller
place to live. Thus, 4G seems to have the capability to
realize the scenario discussed in Section 2. But 4G should also take lesson from the 3G’s failure to capture the
imagination of the end-users. Technology should not be
developed for technology’s sake rather it should target the
end user. Thus, user-centric approach towards 4G’s
development is the key to its success. Common consensus
on the standards and the technologies for 4G needs to be
reached to fasten 4G’s deployment which would be a
gradual process. Lot of research work is required to
investigate the open issues like design for SDR, QoS
parameters and so forth. The threat analysis model
provided by ITU is very apt for the complete analysis and
planning for security of 4G. It can be used as a reference
framework for future research. But still comprehensive
research work is required in the field of network security to
tackle potential security threats because a ubiquitous
“secured” heterogeneous network will appeal more to the
today’s consumers.