The U.S. is considered to be at the forefront of technological advancements in many industries and the number of domestic broadband subscribers it has puts it in the number two spot in the global rankings. Mobile broadband accounts for a relatively small number of the total in the US, but like most emerging technologies it is becoming far more popular. The US government considers broadband access to be a public utility like any other and the implementation of a national broadband plan as part of the recovery package that will bolster the economy after the recent recession should see mobile broadband play a more significant part than ever before.

Mobile broadband is now a broad umbrella term that accommodates a growing family of technologies to provide high speed connectivity. In general it requires a device with software capable of display web pages, such as a smartphone or a laptop and a modem capable of connecting the device to a 3G cellular network. 3G is the third generation of networking standards, though it is coming to the end of its lifespan as new 4G technologies are brought into operation. As 4G is the future, we will now look at the kinds of services that will be on offer to mobile broadband customers in the USA over the coming years.

In general terms, 4G is expected to provide much faster download and upload speeds than 3G mobile broadband and should also be able to handle network traffic more efficiently. 4G download speeds should reach 100Mbps for users who are on the move, whilst strong static connections could reach to 1Gbps and beyond in the future. This kind of speed would allow high definition content to be streamed to mobile devices and computers without any of the physical network infrastructure required by similarly capable landline connections. Mobile broadband of this kind would also allow advanced gaming on relatively modest mobiles and laptops, as the processing would be handled remotely by a central super computer and the player`s interactions would be transferred wirelessly whilst the visual information is streamed to the device.

WiMAX is one pseudo-4G networking technology that is already available in limited areas of the USA. It is based on a similar principle as current Wi-Fi networks, but it can broadcast connections on a much wider scale. Theoretically it will offer download speeds of up to 128Mbps and upload speeds of 56Mbps, though real life figures will be necessarily lower, as is the case with all mobile broadband connections.

To bridge the gap between 3G and 4G, several network providers are trialling LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. Though this is not technically considered to offer the necessary requirements to be classed as 4G, it will be branded as such by many and does have the power to provide much faster speeds than 3G offers. LTE could bring download speeds of up to 100Mbps to mobile broadband users in the USA and mobile broadband deals could being to use LTE in the near future.