The advent of 4G network technologies such as LTE and WiMAX promises a world where every mobile user can access a multi-megabit network everywhere. Augmented reality has captured a lot of attention lately with its notion of video-enabled glasses, mirrors, newspapers, and even contact lenses, but we have a lot of work to do on our mobile network infrastructure before it will support the coverage and capacity that will be required.

In July 2009 U.K. communications regulator Ofcom released its map of 'not spots,' or areas where 3G service is – and is not – available. This map shows that carriers do not provide the ubiquitous, high-speed mobile service required for augmented reality applications. Even in areas where 3G service is technically available, users do not always receive the high bandwidth they want. In extremely dense and crowded areas such as central London, in fact, mobile network users still sometimes experience dropped calls or an inability to connect because the networks lack enough capacity to support demand.

When this is the case with mobile data applications that expect only a few hundred kilobits throughput per second, it is easy to see that the current mobile network infrastructure will not support broad rollouts of augmented reality applications, which can require multiple megabits of bandwidth as well as universal coverage.

So what are we to do? In considering a solution, there are both technical and practical challenges that must be overcome.

Coverage – the higher frequencies often used for 4G are not as effective at penetrating buildings from the external, macro networks now operated by cellular providers. Whereas fully penetrating a building with an 850 MHz or 900 MHz signal is relatively easy, it is much more problematic to drive a signal farther than 3 metres to 6 metres inside a building when the signal transmits at 2.1 GHz or higher.

Capacity – augmented reality relies heavily on video display and database transaction technologies that will require significantly more bandwidth than can be delivered by today's 3G networks. And unlike today where perhaps 40% of users have a smartphone, it is predicted that the augmented reality devices ...