Fourth generation (4G) networks: Roadmap-migration to the future

The mobile communication generations has traversed a long way through different phases of evolution since its birth early in the 1970s. The steady global boom in the number of mobile users each year has periodically spurned the development of more and more sophisticated technologies trying to strike the right chord primarily in terms of provision of seamless global roaming, quality services and high data rate. Today numerous different generation technologies with their individual pros and cons are existing globally. The coming era of 4G systems is foreseeing a potential smooth merger of all these heterogeneous technologies with a natural progression to support seamless cost-effective high data rate global roaming, efficient personalized services, typical user-centric integrated service model, high QoS and overall stable system performance. However, every step in such technological advancements presents huge research challenges. This article aims to focus upon some of these potential challenges along with different proposed feasible and non-feasible solutions in the areas of mobile terminals and users, mobile services, mobile and wireless access networks, and communication, in order to give an indepth view of the next-generation communication systems.