Nokia Siemens Networks CTO: 4G to become 1,000 times faster, significantly cheaper by 2020

Wild predictions are being made about the future of 4G speed by CTO of Nokia Siemens Networks Hossein Moiin. He thinks that by 2020, significant advancements will be made to the technology that will allow for speeds to become 1,000 times faster than they are today while costing as little as $1 per gigabyte, which he says the average consumer will use up on a daily basis.
In order to accomplish this, radio technology will have to be drastically improved by the end of the decade. Moiin believes this is possible by evolution based on a factor of ten.
“We can get 10 times the spectral efficiency, 10 times the performance and 10 times closer cells,” he said. Phew, what a relief with all that speed, huh? According to Moiin, we’re going to need it. A lot. “By 2020 the average person will download one gigabyte of personalised data each day, and it will be delivered for less than $1 a day.”
Carriers are struggling to handle the unprecedented demand for data as it is. Luckily, Moiin suggests the very dense network will “increase the absolute cost but reduce the cost per bit.” Just like everything else, things naturally advance and become cheaper. Cheaper is something carriers can only aspire for at this time, because the amount of money it takes to support wireless networks nowadays is substantial.
By 2020, we’ll likely have (or at least be on the verge of launching) 5G wireless technologies and perhaps that’s what Hossein Moiin is referencing when he speaks of 4G that’s 1,000 times faster than today’s standards. He isn’t so enthusiastic about its development though.
“We will have to do it all again. It’s a lot of work. It gets harder and harder. The front end is much harder, the intellectual part.”