The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardized wireless technology Long Term Evolution (LTE). 3GPP is a consortium of several institutes.
The project also defines standards for other mobile technologies such as HSPA. In Release 8 of the 3GPP LTE in 2008 for the first time defined. Here, speed and technology used were committed.
Different Technologies for Increasing the Data Rate
With Release 8, the theoretical top speed with LTE on 172.8 Mbit/s when receiving data (download) and up to 57.6 Mbit/s is limited to send data.
The speeds are made possible by a number of technical parameters. First, a 16 fold quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is used, a technology that enables more data to be carried on a shaft.
By a plurality of antennas at both transmitters on the receiver side as the speed is increased in both directions as well. This technology is called MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). On LTE Release 8, two independent antennas are used (2 x 2 MIMO). Essential for the increase in speed is also the frequency bandwidth of the connection. In this case, up to 20 MHz, in order to transmit data.
In reality, the network operators are indeed technology such as MIMO and QAM are available, but there is a lack of sufficient bandwidth. This is spread across multiple network operators, so that in practice 50 to 75Mbit/s are technically feasible in the download.