September 2nd, 2010 | 
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The world of mobile internet users is abuzz with the big news of the year: next generation wireless internet networks are coming to cities and communities across the nation and the planet! It has been a seemingly long wait (in reality the lapse between third and fourth generation mobile standards has half as long as that between second and third generation standards, but don’t expect that to quell the thirst for next generation standards one bit), and thank heavens it is a wait that is already over for many millions of Americans and which will soon be over for many millions upon millions more. Having taken root for the first time in the US in the city of Baltimore in 2009, 4G networks have incrementally and steadily spread to dozens and dozens of other cities across the nation; from a measly handful at the very end of 2009, the list has already grown to many dozen by mid-2010 and is likely to reach well over 100 cities and towns by this time in 2011…all of which is really, really exciting if you love your mobile internet connection!
The spread of 4G is mostly concentrated in urban areas where much of the infrastructure needed to deploy such networks is already in place, and all that needs to be done is to have a handful of new, fourth generation radio transmitters placed in piggy-back fashion on preexisting towers/structures. This sort of thrifty form of deploying fourth generation networks further consolidates what is already considered to be the most economical of all mobile internet communications standards, thanks to the brilliant and powerful technology that has gone into WiMax (the currently dominant transmission system used in fourth generation networks). Nonetheless, next generation wireless won’t only be making its appearance in major urban areas over the coming months and years but will also be popping up in many parts of the more rural and remote parts of the continent. This is because, to the great surprise of many of the biggest telecoms in the country, rural Americans have demonstrated a tremendous appetite for high speed mobile internet services. The result of that phenomenon, as unexpected as it happens to be, is that these companies find that the return-on-investment in these kinds of remote places is not that much inferior to the return-on-investment when dealing with the big cities. In short, next generation wireless is coming to a city and a farm near you-assuming it hasn’t already shown up!
The difference that fourth generation mobile makes is, undoubtedly, quite huge: we’re talking more than twice as fast as 3G connections in almost all cases. In fact, at certain non-peak hours it might even be possible for a fourth generation wireless user to download files (big, multimedia files that never before would have been accessible from a mobile device) at speeds of up to 12 Mbps or even more…and that is only a teaser of what is to come. Within the next year or two, data transfer speeds are likely going to careen past the 20 and then the 30 and the 40 Mbps mark!
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