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Many of the things we
do in our normal workday
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involve using our mobile phones.
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These are our cell phones.
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And we call them cell
phones because they
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are using a cellular network.
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We call it cellular because
we are separating up
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the geography of an area
into sections or cells.
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And we put antennas at
the edges of those cells
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so that we're able to
maintain connectivity wherever
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we might happen to travel.
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Some of the original
cellular networks
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were called 2G networks.
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And they consisted of
two global standards.
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One of these standards was
GSM or the Global System
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for Mobile Communications.
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And the other one is CDMA or
Code Division Multiple Access.
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Both of these standards
were very good
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for voice communication, but
they had very limited support
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for sending data over
these wireless networks.
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They were originally circuit
switched networks and really
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had to be upgraded to allow
some type of data connectivity.
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GSM was a big part of that
very early cellular network.
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GSM being the Global System
for Mobile Communications.
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GSM was about 90% of
the worldwide market.
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It was a standard in
the European Union
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and allowed you to have
coverage wherever you
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happen to travel in the world.
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In the United States,
common GSM networks
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were the AT&T network
and T-Mobile network.
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This GSM network allowed you
to have all of your phone
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configurations on a subscriber
identity module or a SIM card.
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And you can move that
card from phone to phone,
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and your phone number
would follow you
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depending on where that
SIM card happened to be.
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This GSM standard
used multiplexing
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to be able to have many
people communicating
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at the same time over
the same frequencies.
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Every user got a
little slice of time
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and could send the information
while other people were also
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conversing on that same network.
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This allowed people to perform
voice communication, data
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communication, and combine
all of that across many people
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in one single geographic area.
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CDMA is the Code
Division Multiple Access.
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And as the name
implies, you can have
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multiple people communicating
over this network.
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But as they were
sending information,
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they were sending it
with a particular code.
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Each call used a different
code to be able to communicate,
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which meant that the
handset that you were using
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could filter out
codes that weren't
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important to your
conversation and focused only
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on the code specific between
you and who you're talking to.
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In the United States,
CDMA was commonly
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used by Verizon and Sprint.
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They controlled exactly
what handsets you were
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able to use on those networks.
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And unfortunately, CDMA
wasn't popular in other parts
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of the world or with
other providers.
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As more people needed
additional capabilities
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on these mobile networks, we
needed newer standards that
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provided additional features.
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One of these newer standards
was the third generation
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or 3G technologies that
we introduced in 1998.
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This allowed us to have much
more capabilities for the data
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that we were sending
from our mobile devices.
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And we had additional
speed so we
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could send more of
that data much faster
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over these same networks.
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Usually we got about several
megabits per second of speed
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over the best possible
3G connectivity.
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With these enhanced
speeds, we were
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able to introduce
new capabilities
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for our mobile handsets, such
as GPS, mobile television,
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streaming video and streaming
audio, or video on demand.
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It became very clear that the
separation between GSM and CDMA
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was creating a number of
challenges for users that
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wanted to move between
different providers
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or use different
networks that might
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be available in their area.
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To be able to converge these
together, we introduced LTE.
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This is 4G technology
in the cellular world.
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And LTE stands for
Long Term Evolution.
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This was a converged
standard, so companies
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that used to be
GSM or CDMA can now
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use one standard LTE
to be able to send data
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over a wireless network.
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It's based on GSM and what we
call EDGE or the Enhanced Data
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Rates for GSM Evolution.
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You combine all those together
to create this newer LTE
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standard.
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And it increased
the throughput up
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to 150 megabits per second
on the best possible
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mobile connection.
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In some areas you may find
an upgraded version of LTE
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called LTE Advanced or
LTE-A, where it effectively
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doubled the throughput
on these LTE networks
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up to 300 megabits per second.
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In 2020, we introduced
a newer generation
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of mobile communication called
our 5G or fifth generation
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cellular networking.
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These 5G networks introduced
greatly enhanced speeds.
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And we will eventually
have 5G networks
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that can perform at around
10 gigabits per second.
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These 5G networks greatly
enhanced the speeds
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that we can use for data
over these mobile networks.
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And in the best
possible scenario,
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we should eventually get to 10
gigabit per second throughput
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from one single mobile device.
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As these networks
are rolling out,
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you may find that you have
speeds between 100 and 900
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megabits per second,
which is still
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much faster than the
older LTE networks.
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If we are able to
greatly increase
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the speeds of the data going
over these 5G networks,
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then we may be able to
extend the functionality
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of our mobile devices.
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This could be especially useful
for Internet of Things devices
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where you have many different
devices on the network that
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need to have some
type of connectivity.
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If bandwidth and speeds
are suddenly not an issue,
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you should be able
to greatly increase
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the capabilities of these IoT
or Internet of Things devices.
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This would allow us to have
much larger file transfers.
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We might increase
the capabilities
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of the applications
that we're using.
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Or you may be able to upload
much more data into the cloud
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for additional processing.
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Many of the updates
for our mobile devices
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occur in the operating
system of the device itself.
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One of these updates
is a PRL update.
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This is a Preferred Roaming
List that allows your phone
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to understand where all
of the appropriate towers
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are for the network that
it happens to be using.
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This can be updated
over-the-air.
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So you may see that your phone
is performing an OTA update.
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And if that's occurring, it may
be because a preferred roaming
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list needs to be
changed on your device.
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On some mobile phones, you
can combine or merge together
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the cellular network
with an 802.11 network.
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This is when you turn your
phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
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This is effectively your
own personal data router
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that's using the
cellular network
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to communicate to the internet.
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So you could turn your
phone into a hotspot.
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And now any other
device in your area
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that communicates
over 802.11, can
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use the internet
connectivity that's
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on your cellular network.
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Your phone may support
Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities,
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but your provider may limit
what your phone is able to do.
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There may be an
additional charge
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to enable that capability.
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And there may be
data costs associated
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with the information
you're sending when you're
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in this Wi-Fi hotspot mode.
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You'll want to check with
your cellular provider
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to see what options
may be available
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for your mobile phone.
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