Mobile Data makes up the technology and business foundations of smartphone and wireless Internet revolutions. Here comes an authentic guide for the rapidly evolving mobile data landscape that resides at the heart of the smartphone revolution. The arrival of the 4G networks marks a crucial crossroads for the wireless industry and the name of that crossroads is mobile data. Age of Mobile Data celebrates that defining moment in the digital life with a past, present and future storyline. The book covers early mobile data networks like ARDIS and Mobitex and provides a detailed treatment of GSM's mobile data offshoot: GPRS. Age of Mobile Data then focuses on three generations of wireless networks that feature mobile data as a pure-play: 3G, 4G and even 5G. While doing so, the book explains the key industry concepts like LTE, MIMO, HetNet and small-cells in graphic details. Moreover, to offer a complete picture to its readers, the book delves into how Wi-Fi networks are complementing cellular systems amid an exponential increase in mobile data traffic. FIND OUT: Details of early mobile data initiatives like ARDIS, Mobitex and CDPD How GSM networks evolved into mobile data platforms like GPRS The myth and reality of 3G network's mobile data promise The story behind mobile operators' love and hate relationship with Wi-Fi What is the real 4G? The major building blocks of data-centric LTE networks A blueprint of 5G and profile of associated technologies like millimeter wave How wireless industry is converging with the Internet of Things"