Eight years from now, 4G phones will be in the shops, according to the vice-president of research at Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Ulf Wahlberg.

Four years from now, radio frequencies would be assigned, and in 2012 there would be 4G products on the market, he said, at the annual conference of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science in Kista in Stockholm.

Wahlberg defined 4G as mobile telephony at a data rate of 100Mbps globally, that is, between any two points in the world. Locally, 1G bps will be possible.

"Transmitting a hundred megabits per second between two points at short range is not difficult," he said. "We can do that now. What's hard is to make it work between any two points on the globe."

New mobile telephony systems were launched about every 10 years, Wahlberg said. What took time was not just developing the technology: It was necessary to find available radio frequencies for the new systems, preferably the same frequency everywhere.

The costs of adapting technology to different local systems were becoming less and less acceptable.

"Also, low entry costs are essential," Wahlberg said.

A new system should be scalable, allowing operators to introduce a technology gradually instead of making huge investments before they have any customers.

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