Fourth generation: now, it is personal!

At a time when the second generation (2G) enjoys tremendous success and the third generation (3G, also known as IMT-2000) is nearing deployment, at least in Japan and Europe (2001-2), and with operators willing to pay billions of Euro/USD for the respective licenses, discussing fourth generation (4G) might seem premature, even far-fetched. But it is in this context, further dominated by the pervasiveness of IP and the advent of reconfigurable radio, that we discuss the need to start thinking now about the fourth generation: the lapse between the initial studies, the assignment of spectrum, and the commercial deployment is always large, in the order of 10/sup +/ years. Contrary to some approaches, our perspective of 4G is not one of solely higher data rates, still with a public service focus. What is at stake is a different perspective of service, more than yet another technology revolution, and this constitutes a bigger challenge: the focus is now squarely on the user, not on the operators/service providers. Fourth generation will finally put the user in control, as they will be able to decide at every occasion (application), and for every environment (mobility, coverage), the right system, and even the right terminal; providing them personalized service irrespective of the underlying network, and in fact making the best use of the scarce spectrum by directing each data stream in a communication session to the most appropriate (i.e., efficient) network.