Does 4G really matter?

By on Mar 15, 2011 at 12:44 PM
Featured March 15, 2011

4G. It’s everywhere. It’s on the tech sites you read. It’s on the televisions you watch. It’s plastered in advertisements all over the city streets you walk. It was probably in the sandwich you ate for lunch. Cellular carriers around the world are betting the bank on 4G — be it LTE, WiMAX or the newly knighted HSPA+ — and 4G-enabled gear is already starting to flood the market despite the lack of nationwide coverage.

Sprint was first to market with 4G here in the U.S. since HSPA+ was still just 3G at the time, and the carrier now has several 4G smartphones and 4G modems available for sale. Verizon Wireless is about to launch its first 4G phone, the highly anticipated HTC ThunderBolt, and AT&T will begin the process of replacing its HSPA+ 4G network with an LTE 4G network later this year. Even smaller carriers like MetroPCS are getting in on the action. In fact, MetroPCS became the first U.S. carrier to launch an LTE phone last year when it released the Samsung Craft.

Not long ago, 4G was a myth in terms of available technology. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defined 4G as cellular service that provides peak download speeds of approximately 100Mbps in high-mobility environments (cell phones) and peak download speeds of approximately 1Gbps in low-mobility environments. LTE, WiMAX and HSPA+ don’t even come close to fitting that definition. This is no longer the case, however. Carriers are spending billions of dollars on these next-generation technologies and millions more advertising them. And so, not surprisingly, the ITU recently shifted its position and amended its definition of 4G to include current technologies. That worked out nicely.

Semantics aside, 4G services like LTE and WiMAX are where cellular technology is headed and eventually we’ll all embrace these new networks. We know 4G is a big deal to carriers because they’re spending bucket loads of money on these technologies, but all the hype right now surrounds speed. Speed? T-Mobile’s HSPA+ is often faster than these newer 4G technologies, as we recently saw in a recent nationwide speed test. So, does 4G really matter? Cut through all the marketing, advertising, speed tests and hype, and the answer is still yes — but perhaps not solely for the reason you think.

4G networks based on LTE and WiMAX will play an important role in empowering the future of the wireless industry. Yes, they have the potential to afford speeds that exceed the limitations of older cellular technologies like CDMA, EDGE, EV-DO and HSPA, but some might consider that a benefit of lesser importance than the capability these networks have to accommodate more traffic. Just ask AT&T, which has been taking hits in mind share ever since the mass of iPhone users began crippling its data network. Of course Apple’s inexperience with building cell phones continues to play a large role in AT&T’s current situation, but that’s another article entirely.

Without getting overly technical, new 4G networks based on LTE and WiMAX make use of technologies that will better accommodate the sharp rise in cell phone usage we’re currently seeing the the U.S. and other markets. The use of technologies like Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology result in a more efficient use of spectrum, better signal coverage and — most importantly, perhaps — more capacity.

Think of your cellular connection as a highway. Older 3G technologies might have two or three lanes in each direction. When traffic is light, the highway is more than suitable to get you from A to B quickly, efficiently and painlessly. Problems arise as rush hour approaches, however, and it could now take hours to get to the same destination that would take just 20 minutes in light traffic.

Now, think of LTE and WiMAX as a highway that offers 10 lanes in each direction. It might have the same 65 MPH speed limit as the narrower highway, but traffic will keep moving along just fine when rush hour rolls around.

It’s far more difficult to convey this benefit in advertising, and users naturally consider speed to be of great importance — especially after being conditioned by wireline broadband services and the ISPs that provide them. As such, speed will continue to be at the forefront of all marketing messages carriers deliver to the public surrounding 4G. But rest assured, carriers need the added capacity afforded by LTE and WiMAX networks if they are to survive. Moreover, developers need the capacity so they can continue innovating, and subscribers need it so they can use all these great new services without experiencing 10 car pile-ups on a regular basis.

We’re now in the midst of rush hour and 3G highways are far too narrow to handle the congestion.

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  • rednick261

    Actually, AT&T isn’t going to be replacing HSPA+ with LTE, it’s going to be running in tandem. In other words, we’ll be running both technologies side by side.

  • Anonymous

    Yes it does, and it makes a world of difference when you cut off ties with Comcast. Streaming movies and watching youtube videos without having to buffer is great

  • Shawn Guse

    Well, it’s faster…so I’m going to have to say yes.

  • Anonymous

    So the network providers made the decision for ITU on what the 4G standard is?? So, SO wrong. WAY TO HOLD BACK TRUE PROGRESS FAT CATS. The world doesn’t have to be like this.

  • http://twitter.com/axlahn Sam Ahn

    Do I want to have 4G on my phone? Sure…I love a nice big data pipe and it would be nice to have something closer to my wi-fi connection at home while I’m out and about. BUT…and this is a major BUT for me…if the carriers add another $10-20 for me to use that 4G connection while ALSO charging extra for tethering, text/mms messaging, etc…than count me out. And I think for MOST average people, that will be the case. Apple will jump on 4G, but I think that’s exactly why they haven’t pushed it out yet. It’s just not there for mass consumption and when it is, will people care all that much? I’m frankly pretty tired of how the wireless carriers price their “services”. I’m pissed enough about data caps on my unlimited service at home. I’m not looking forward to more tiered pricing (and probably at different bandwidths) by wireless carriers.

    And you know how wireless carriers and ISPs claim that a small 1-2% are responsible for the 60-90% of data usage? It’s those 1-2% that are really pushing the Internet forward and helping to create more demand for products such as HD video streaming. In turn, the average consumer, who probably only use a small amount of bandwidth, are looking to purchase higher speed services while under utilizing what they are paying for. I certainly don’t always approach the 250GB I’m alotted every month, but why am I paying for an advertised speed and not an advertised total badwidth cap?

  • Dako1405

    I work in an indirect location in NYC and I can tell you I did a speed-test on a sprint phone on 4G came back download at 5 Mbps and 1 Mbps upload on a Verizon 4G same test came back 18 MBPS and 4 MBPS upload, I am getting the thunderbolt no matter what.

    P.S. AT&T came back 1.2 Mbps download and .5 Mbps upload. 4G my ass!

  • Midwesthang

    Let me know how your 4g works when you’re not in a “covered” area.

  • Dextosenergy

    Does 4G really matter….humm lets see…4G has a recognized standard….no one meets that standard….everyoun that markets as having G but is only delivering 3G….even 4G LTE network still only delivering 3G….your run out and purchase a 4G “capable” phone and only get a 3G speeds from 4G network. Now depending on how you look at it none of them are saying that you will actual have increase speeds vs the old networks just that your purchasing a 4 G phone and that they have a 4G network…they never say your actual speeds will be increased…In my mind its a bait and switch not really technically advertising. We are a country of snake oil marketing. Hey look at it this way your got a new phone you enjoy and they have your money….now you know why they are able to sell 3G iphones on a supposed 4G network…because they know the speed standards do not matter…they never said you would have 4G speeds. If you think that is inaccurate they why the need fro caps and throttling?

  • Stu99

    How will 4G compare with WiFi access over Verizon FIOS? I have this at home and to be honest, I don’t appreciate much of a speed difference when surfing the web via my phone or PC vs 3G. It seems to only show impact when I want to download something.

  • Smartguy

    “Does 4G really matter?”
    You bet your sweet @$$ it does. Ok lets cut the tech talk for a sec, would you want to wait a few minutes for a music, video, or other file type to download on 3G? Or wait a few SECONDS on 4G? If you answered yes to question 2 then 4G is for you, plain & simple.

  • Paul

    Will having more 4G users decongest the 3G network and make it faster?

    • Jack

      According to the article it will.

  • Dougo13

    What utter malarkey! Where I am 71% of people still have land line phones. In an emergency the lines will still be operational while your cell towers will be knocked down and off the air. Bleeding edge for what? To sell me more apps I will discard almost as soon as I load them up? Yeah, right….

  • @j_nathaniel

    Yes, 4G matters. Majorly. Faster networks are certainly necessary, but better than that, these networks can handle more at the same time at those speeds. This means none of that (or at least a whole lot less) “no network available” messages when trying to call someone when there is a game down the street…or the bars are full.

  • Anonymous

    If it is available in your area—is right.. It isn’t in my area, yet the 4g phone is being pushed like crazy.. Strange.. Why buy it if you CANNOT use it.. Goofy.. Plus, I am ok w/ 3g as it is fast enough..yes, fast enough..

  • 4glte

    What’s going to freak everybody out is that the fastest wireless networks available in the world are going to be low giga-consumption only and for an extremely high priced premium for many years to come. Even though the speeds are awesome, your bill is going to be enormous. It’s laughable when you think about it, carriers will invest in their 4G hype machine and won’t allow heavy data use. I can web surf all day, all month on 3G and never worry about my restricted data plan. But then you throw 4G into the mixed and expect the same old usage patterns but higher prices. Well a lot of customer should be upset.

  • Sharkbait

    Does anyone know what demands 4G will place on battery life? If it eats up the battery, then I’d rather not bother with it on a small form factor like a phone (as opposed to a larger tablet-sized form factor) until battery capacity technology improves significantly.

    Just as a comparison, 3G places a significantly greater load than 2G. When I’m in Thailand (which is stuck in the Jurassic age and only has 2G in this day & age), my phone can last 3-4 days easily between charges. Whereas when I’m home & on 3G, it barely lasts a day without charging.

    • Dextosenergy

      depending on the battery 4g will drain about a third of the battery in about 10 minutes or less. I believe some one posted a vid demo of a 4g running and that was specifically what the demo was to show.

  • http://www.brosix.com/ Brosix

    The next phone upgrade I get will be a 4G phone but I’m not getting for that reason since 4G ( at least Verizon’s ) is only available in the huge cities. They need to develop stronger batteries.

  • Dextosenergy

    If you get throttled NO. at this point 4g is only delivering 3g – so it doest matter…but if you bought the new 4g phone the carrier is saying Cha-ching! To them it matters.

  • Anonymous

    Simple question requires a simple answer….

    Yes it matters since now you can get to your 2Gig cap faster

  • http://majorplonquer.myopenid.com/ Major Plonquer

    One problem with trying to assess 4G is your point-of-view. Looking at the mobile sector from the USA is difficult at best. THE US was left more or less a decade behind when the rest of the world took up GSM. SInce then its been the global telecoms market’s ‘poor cousin’. Since 2G was effectively a busted flush in the USA the ensuing uptake of 3G in not remarkable. However, in many of the world’s major markets this is not the case.

    Take China, the world’s largest mobile market. In China there are less than 50 million 3G subscribers in a total market of 950 million mobile users. Of this 50 million, around a half are 3G dongles sold for use by laptop owners. That means there are only around 25 million 3G handset users in China. 3G is a failure. You can see the same scenario repeated around the world in many countries.

    The problem is that 2G has a ‘killer app’. You can talk to people who are very far away without having to shout. The ‘killer app’ for 3G was supposed to be the browser. Yet outside the ‘news-infested’ sectors of North America and Western Europe this isn’t killer enough reason for people to buy.

    So what will be the ‘killer app’ of 4G? The only one I can think of is price. If 4G makes using a mobile handset cheaper the world will buy it. If not, there’s always 5G.

  • Anonymous

    As long as we have these insanely low data caps, no LTE is pointless. It will just eat up the data plans faster and cost consumers more with overages as they won’t even realize how much data they are consuming streaming high quality video.

    10 gigs should be the min cap on that type of speed. They should offer 10 or 15gig caps min on LTE. I don’t care I’d it’s $80 buck but make it useable amount of data.

  • Think

    Something new will always come out. Why discuss it when it only leads to this is better then that and vise-versa. Reality is, the coverage is what matter’s the most to everyone. Just because sprint has 4g and att is using 3g… You need to have coverage to have the full potential. For example, I can be in the basement; Vierzon and AT&T both have perfect coverage here, where as Sprint was horrible and dropping calls left and right. If you tested each of them in the same area you are the most, then that data coverage is what’s going to make you happy.
    Everyone has their own thing, why bicker about it. Why not pick up the phone and yell at the companies.
    Personally, Verizon is great, however their plans are expensive. Sprint plans are great, but coverage is horrible. T-Mobile has a bettery variety and seems to have their stuff geared towards families with teens. AT&T are in the middle, however to get the stuff you need like msging, it’s extra to the plans unlike the others. You have to weigh the Pro’s and Con’s and what company can provide you the best coverage for your needs geographically.

  • http://assetprotection365.com/ Gary L. Fales

    4G is relevant if it uses LTE.

    WiMax uses about 100 times more electricity to power and bombards people with its long waves even if they aren’t using it.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2EQFUMZJBGS5QUZDUDWGIRFKNE Whome

    Is it safe to be near a device that is switching at 1 billion times a second? Now multiply that by a 1000 phones that would be near you say if you were in an open space like Grant Park in Chicago.

    Remember this is all coming in over the air – we know tissue absorbs energy that moves in the air (aka radiation).

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