Legal and bureaucratic issues have hampered 3G Mobile Networks in China. So, a research center in Shanghai called “FuTURE Project” plans to leapfrog 3G networks to go straight to 4G.

Samsung of South Korea was first to pull off the first 4G Mobile network in Seoul
during a demonstration on a moving bus. Ki Tae Lee, president of Samsung’s Telecommunications envisions future Korean 4G mobile networks using its 8X8 MIMO (multi-input, multi-output) technology. Samsung’s technology is based on transmitters and receivers each having eight antennas with multi-path transmission capabilities in a sort of wide-parallel network process.

Meanwhile in Shanghai the FuTURE Project group promises the largest mobile network in the world that will incorporate high definition IPTV (Internet Protocol Television). They’re still in the development phase but believe they’ll have this system online in the next five years.

The race is on! The Chinese FuTURE Project vs Korea’s Samsung to unveil the first 4G mobile networks. The International Telecommunications Union defines 4G as any mobile network at 100Mb per second and wi-fi at 1Gb per second. There is no single 4G technology per-se as there are many possible ways to deliver the transfer speeds outlined by the ITU that meet its definition. 4G is the successor to 3G, the current high speed mobile networking technology capable of 10Mb per second transfer rates. 3G is currently used around the world through CDMA networks using EVDO and where GSM networks use GPRS.

You’ve got to hand it to the Chinese, the culture that gave us ‘out of the box’ thinking. I know nothing of the details of China’s struggle to unroll 3G networks. But it’s compelling, even inspiring to hear of them working around an apparent 3G blockage by stepping over it in a big way.