‘Don’t Rush For 4G’

The President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ericsson Group has warned some telecommunications operators not to take up the fourth generation (4G) technology.

According to Hans Vestberg, there is a growing market for the 3G network and therefore any attempt to quickly use the 4G would kill the vast potential of 3G.

Mr. Vestberg, who recently toured Ghana, said the 3G technology still served a vast number of mobile users worldwide.

He revealed that mobile phone users should use the 3G until a time when the ground was fully prepared for the adoption of an advanced technology.

The CEO said about four years ago, the maximum speed on the 3G network was 7.5 megabytes per second (Mbps).

“We are now deploying 84 Mbps in the 3G network.” For this reason, users will be required to have advanced handsets at high costs in order to be able to use 84 Mbps. This is the limiting factor now.”

Very soon, the IT world would be going for 168 Mbps on the 3G and this explains why telecommunications companies are being asked to wait a little bit. In the case of the 4G network, he said it has a speed capacity of 1gigabite per second.

“So we should reap all the benefits in 3G, and of course deploy 4G in areas where high-speed and capacity is needed,” he said.

4G provides data and streaming media at a much higher data rate from the ethernet-grade 100Mbps between any two points in the world to 1Gbps. It is appropriate for high bandwidth-consuming applications like mobile TV, video-calls, and high definition (HD) broadcast, among others.

The United States and Korea currently have the highest number of consumers of 4G technologies worldwide. Mobile telecommunications service providers in Ghana have not considered the option of going for it.

Ericsson is currently the sole supplier of GSM network to MTN, Tigo and Airtel in the country.