A few words about 4G in the U.S.

We've seen a lot of confusion among our clients about what 4G means, and if their new smartphones can take advantage of the faster networks. This is compounded by the lies currently airing as advertisements by all four of our major carriers.

The ITU (a part of the U.N.) is responsible for designating which wireless technologies are 2G, 3G, and 4G. The need for such an agency sprung out of a good deal of false advertising from carriers around the world, which is exemplified by the 4G debacle we find ourselves in today.

Until December 6th, 2010 the ITU had every network in the U.S. classified as 3G, that includes Sprint's WiMAX, and T-Mobile's HSPA+ networks.  At that point AT&T had just started planning the deployment of an LTE network (the same technology Verizon has turned on in over 175 cities to date). While I apologize for the acronym soup you're currently wading through, the essense of the story is that every U.S. carrier had been advertising "4G speeds" when none of them actually had 4G in any stage of planning or operation. It's one thing to be offended at the blatant lies shown on television under the guise of advertising, it's insulting. What makes matters worse is how this situation has spiraled out of control over the last year.

That date above is important because on that day in 2010 the ITU caved to pressure from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon (and others internationally) and chose to change their 4G classification to include "the forerunners of these technologies, LTE, WiMAX, and to other evolved 3G technologies." In short, (because of intense lobbying and closed doors negotiating from the wireless industry) on December 5th, 2010 every major carrier in the U.S. was lying in their advertisements about 4G speeds, and on December 6th, 2010 they were telling the truth.

I don't know about you but that kind of behaviour is intensely uncompetitive, petty, and reeks of crony capitalism. 

The result of this behaviour is massive confusion in the marketplace. Does your company have employees with an iPhone 4G or 4GS? Those aren't 4G phones. On Sprint and Verizon they use a plain old 3G network (CDMA) which doens't even allow phone calls and data simultaneously. On AT&T they use the same 3G (HSDPA and HSPA+) which has been available for years. The very same technology is powering T-Mobile's "4G" network, although it is substantially faster than the AT&T variety.

The term 4G is meant to be an equivalency test, some objective way for businesses and consumers to know that Network A and Network B are comparable. Instead, we find ourselves in the exact opposite situation. AT&T has lumped their 3G (HSPA+) and "4G" (LTE) networks together and branded the entirety of their operation 4G. So if you were to use a Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T in one of the 5 cities with LTE deployed you'll see speeds significantly faster than Sprints 4G network, roughly equivalent to Verizon's 4G, and likely slower than T-Mobile's offering. However, use the same phone in any other city in the country and even though it remains a "4G" phone running on a "4G" (now HSPA+) network you'll be lucky to see speeds 1/6th that of Verizon 4G.

Honestly, our carriers have created a hot mess of competing standards, marketing lies, and spun it in a way that the average business or consumer can't possibly be expected to keep up with.

When it comes time to upgrade the phones in your organization we ask that you challenge your carrier representative to explain why you should go with their fake 4G network instead of the others. Make sure their coverage is best in the regions and cities you do business, and try your best to ignore the hype machine that goes by the name of 4G.

Comments

[Crispin]

4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is all the rage right now. The ultra-high-speed network, which is capable of up to 100M bps download speeds, is rapidly being rolled out across the United States. In addition, there appears to be a relatively good chance in the coming years that it will be nearly ubiquitous no matter where you go