Several companies advertise 4G networks or 4G speeds including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. What is the difference between 3G and 4G phones? What are the benefits to the end user? Why should I care about it as a user looking to buy a phone and get a service provider?
In 2009, the ITU-R organization specified the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility communication. The nomenclature of the generations generally refers to a change in the fundamental nature of the service, non-backwards compatible transmission technology, higher spectral bandwidth and new frequency bands…bla bla bla…
That’s a lot of big words and technical mumbo-jumbo. Now I’m trying for easy explanation.
4G The Simple Definition :
“3G” means “third-generation digital cellular”. it offered much faster data speeds than the second-generation cellular, and made data connections separate from phone call connections.
“4G” was supposed to mean “fourth-generation digital cellular”. There is supposed to be a common technology standard used by everyone, named “LTE“. However, it has become a vague marketing term that basically means “faster than the another”. There was supposed to a hard spec for it, I think it was a download speed of 100 megabits per second, but so many companies started to advertise their fast 3G services as “4G” that the ITU or whoever gave in and let companies call anything reasonably fast “4G”.
The Evo 4G was a big success and T-Mobile was watching. T-Mobile’s marketing wavered by marketing ‘4G-like’ speeds before finally settling on calling its HSPA+ network 4G for its marketing efforts and similarly labeling its phones. Regardless of what it called the network, T-Mobile was bringing to market interesting and appealing devices including the HTC G2 and myTouch smartphones, and more recently the Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy II S 4G smartphones. T-Mobile was highly regarded for the breadth of its device portfolio including low and high end devices. Both Verizon and AT&T apparently took notice when they launched their own 4G porfolios. Both companies marketed the 4G aspect of their inexpensive and basic smartphones as well as their industry leading devices such as Verizon’s Motorola Droid Razr and AT&T’s Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket
LTE is short for Long Term Evolution and is considered the successor to 3G. But currently is still in the pre-3G stage, but will soon be upgraded to LTE Advanced to offer the full 4G experience. Currently, there are around 8-10 networks providing LTE services, across Europe, North America.
The rival to LTE is WiMAX, which has been very successful in being implemented in emerging markets where there is a lack of mobile infrastructure. Two years ago Sprint started the 4G name game with its WiMAX network by talking about faster-than-3G speeds and a hot, new device, the HTC Evo 4G. The Evo 4G introduced the standard for the 4G smartphone, and Sprint actually set the stage for how the rest of the industry rolls out its 4G networks. Clearly, someone at Sprint figured out that fast is fine but fast with a cool device is even better.
Benefits Of 4G For Mobile Users:
At the moment there are limitations in the capacity of data allowances and battery life. For day to day activities the battery life is an aspect of mobile technology that has fallen behind and currently limits the usage and ability to travel without a charger. Also, all current network providers are limiting the capacity of their current 3G systems. The days of dial-up connections and slowly loading pages are over and consumers expectations are high.
As smartphones increase in power and capability, user demand rises also. With the world full of consumers demanding more and more out of their hand held devices, there are certain bottlenecks and limitations that are currently not advancing as everyone would wish. So prepare for 4G connection speeds.
The major benefit and advantage 4G has over the current 3G is speed. With expectations of over 10 times faster network speeds. Allowing users to consume data and information at a much faster rate. Increasing the possibility of the activities currently available with smartphones. Such as using the network speeds much like you would at home or at work, with an expected 5-12mbps download speed. Therefore increasing flexibility and freedom to get access online whenever required because 4G operates in the 700MHz spectrum. This means the signal can penetrate buildings much more easily. Therefore, eliminating the current problem of lost signals when in certain buildings and locations.
Plus benefit, latency on the 4G network is expected to be greatly reduced. By utilising faster throughput with lower latency each and every mobile device can benefit from improved battery performance. Helping carry out daily activities much less of a worry, whether venturing on long trips and not worrying about battery life to making cheap calls to USA or anywhere else in the world, and many other activities that were once a worry will hopefully be resolved with increased battery life when carrying out different tasks.
Assuming you have coverage for your hot, new smartphone, what about performance? Download speeds in the single digits to low teens MB range were typical for early T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s 4G networks smartphone users. How quickly things change. During random tests in October of this year using T-Mobile’s HSPA +42 network, Verizon Samsung Charge LTE phone, and on a Sprint HTC Evo4G, tests performed have confirmed that the current level of all 4G smartphone performance is now much higher. This shows that where there is coverage, users have competitive mobile broadband services from which to choose.
What is the next area for marketing differentiation? Operators should be looking at voice quality. There is a noticeable difference in voice quality among the Verizon Samsung Charge LTE, T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II and Sprint HTC Evo 4G phones, at least in the tests. In side-by-side comparisons, T-Mobile and Sprint had the best voice quality with Verizon is trailing. But T-Mobile executives emphatically maintain that voice quality is a priority for the company and a requirement for which it optimizes. Time and competition will determine how important voice quality becomes as a market issue.
T-Mobile continues to push the definition of 4G but clearly it is raising the bar from performance, device and cost perspectives and is pushing hard on coverage. But beware, all phones benefits will be limited to the networks their available to.
Maybe it is time to finally move beyond the esoteric technical arguments of what is and is not 4G and instead use those arguments to define differentiation in terms of real user experience.
AT&T Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, LTE Evo 4G HSPA+ whatever
