One of the next major standard strategies for 3GPP is LTE Advanced. In Release 8 we have SC. Today I am at our friend Dr. Hyung Myungs's Workshop at NYU Poly about Single Carrier - Frequency Division Muliple Access [SC-FDMA]. 

I still have to ask? What is the mission?

The Vision of the 4G Broadband Wireless Era is being discussed around me today. Its a lot of math and its focused on the PAPR problem. Listening I am impressed with the work, but still not sure the premise is right. What devices are we going to be using in the future? In the presentations, I see the goal as managing the issues of frequency. Slicing the channel with OFDM in a distributed mode, makes the most sense to me as I listen and grapple with the calculus.

However, It feels like we are still coping with a world that may not exist. In IP particularly with UDP, losing a packet is no big deal, and in TCP the ability to resend saves the day.

So when does the problem show up?

The answer back is when we have Interference in the signals, but precoding is being done and the signals are being managed at several layers.

I think WiMAX maybe right to take a pass on implementing this standard. If the device of the future is not really a phone the processing on the edge maybe able to over come a lot of these problems. For many devices and applications SC role has somewhat limited value. It maybe that Video is the most likely benefactor of this next generation.

Of course it may be that the amount of devices become so numerous, the interference makes SC essential.

As is so often said this would be a nice problem to have.