I wonder if there will be a backlash when all these folks "upgrading" to 4G phones suddenly find themselves quickly at their monthly data caps due to some new app (live NFL games, for instance, or video chat). Faster download speeds are great, but at what cost? The advertising out there now seems to assume an unlimited data plan (watch whatever you want!).
It will be interesting to see if Verizon's 4G device numbers continue to trail Sprint's as they did for Q2, when Sprint sold a half-million more 4G devices despite less marketing, sales reach, etc. Maybe customers are already gravitating toward Sprint's unlimited plans?
"I think if we have operators going around randomly using (or hijacking) different terms for marketing we will end up with an even more confusing situation for users."
I disagree. Maybe I'm biased because I'm with Sprint. With Sprint, EVDO is 3G, WiMax is 4G. It is a pretty cut-and-dried definition. If I didn't follow this terminology, I would have had a very difficult time getting the correct phone from Sprint.
Also, whatever their theoretical speeds, in actual use, WiMax is much faster than EVDO. So I think that calling them both 3G would be pretty confusing.
As kaps noted, faster bit rates mean that the bill runs up faster or the cap is reached faster. Wireless bits are much costier than wireline bits, to the provider as well as the user, so an ITU-style 4G service with 1Gbps downloads is really kind of silly. Do you want to reach your 2GB (16 Gb) monthly cap in 20 seconds? Or 3 minutes if mobile? What is the fuel burn/minute rate of a Bugatti using 800 of its 1000 horsepower? Peak power is sexy but not always useful.
I just got the warning yesterday from Verizon that my daughter's new Droid is half way to its plan limit, with just beyond half the month behind us. That's 3G, which seems fast enough. So I don't see speed as the benefit of 4G. LTE's benefit is more to providers, allowing more efficiency.
I go with technology-bsaed generaitons:
1G: Analog (AMPS, NMT, etc.-- a real hodge-podge)
2G: Digital voice (GSM, D-AMPS IS-136, CDMAone)
Now, see, the thing is, AT&T says that it would 30 percent more network density (towers, cellsites) in cities and towns with T-Mobile buyout. The way I read it is that I can get to an 80% (plan of record deployment) coverage by the end of 2013 or quicker with more LTE in the cities than take their sweet time deploying LTE in the boondocks (probably need to build out backhaul and cellsites anyway). Meanwhile 97% of the pops have HSPA+ to fall back to, as AT&T promises to cover that footprint by the end of 2012.
Think back to when 1080p TVs were the latest craze. There were a bunch of competing wannabe technologies: 1080i or interlaced or upscaled. But the industry did not cave in and let these Faux 1080p be called 1080p, just because some vendor they didn't have their 1080p TV ducks lined up.
We didn't called 802.11g the same same thing as 802.11n.
Why can't these providers who don't have 4G have the same integrity to not want to screw the industry, rather than put lipstick on that 3G pig? And why did the ITU concede the point?
Yes, creative marketing should be the approach: fgoldstein had a few of the typical chestnuts of previous semi-generation skippers.
Let's stay honest here and use 4G for the all-IP OFDM radical shift in mobile networking, fer cryin' out loud!
Regardless of the semantics used to describe their technology, the bottom line apparently is that these carriers lack the capacity to accomodate their subs.We all know the drawback of a wireless signal....reflection, line-of-sight,and multipart reception issues.Couple of this with a shared media,and you have untold problems. With cell technology, the packets are fixed at 53 bits,but with all this new 3/4G, WiMax,ect, the bandwidth gets bigger and wears down this shared media to a trickle.
I wonder if there will be a backlash when all these folks "upgrading" to 4G phones suddenly find themselves quickly at their monthly data caps due to some new app (live NFL games, for instance, or video chat). Faster download speeds are great, but at what cost? The advertising out there now seems to assume an unlimited data plan (watch whatever you want!).
It will be interesting to see if Verizon's 4G device numbers continue to trail Sprint's as they did for Q2, when Sprint sold a half-million more 4G devices despite less marketing, sales reach, etc. Maybe customers are already gravitating toward Sprint's unlimited plans?