4G: What's in a name

If you've seen all of the new cellphone company ads you heard the term "4G" but what does it mean? It's a unit higher than 3G, but does that mean it's better? Why are all the carriers in the US over night claiming their networks to be 4G compatible? Is all 4G the same? To answer those questions requires a little walk through some wireless technology terms like WiMax, HSDPA+ .

As one would expect, the 4 in 4G stands for the fourth generation of mobile wireless technology. It encompasses a range of VoIP and mobile broadband technologies used by smartphones, wireless modems, and other broadband device . According to the International Telecommunications Union, the standards group that came up with the term,  defines 4G as a network that offers mobile speeds of 100Mbps up to 1Gbps -- a 500-fold improvement over current 3G speeds.

There has been lots of discussion as to whether the current wave of mobile technologies marketed as 4G are truly deserving of the name. As it is now, all of the 4G technologies currently in use, are technically considered to be 4G predecessor systems. In almost all the cases the "4G" is used as a markinting tearm . None of the cell companies have even come close to the 100Mbps speed requirement and the ITU has not approved any of them as 4G.



T-Mobile and AT&T market their HSPA+ service with the 4G label, but HSPA+ is widely considered to be an advanced 3G standard -- 3.5G tops. T-Mobile's  HSPA+ network tops out at 21Mbps. The aple for using these technology is it's upgread cost to the cell comapiny. Both T-Mobile and AT&T used older HSPA technology to provide 3G servers, therefore they can upgrade their equipment.  This is also why you can buy 4G phones for less then $50 now --the cost of manufacturing the chips are much lower then other 4G technologies.

WiMax has been deployed by Sprint, the oldest of the 4G standard, it's been around since 2001.  The hope was that WiMax could become a replacement for both 3G and WIFI. That it could provide theoretical download speeds of up to 100Mbps. In the real-world speeds were far below that level more like  3-6Mbps. Sprint has recently debated jumping ship and going to LTE in the near future.  Even though WiMax will still be supported for the next couple of years, WiMax was on foot in the grave

The new kid on the block is LTE -- Long Term Evolution.  It is generally accepted to succeed both CDMA2000 (Version and Sprint)  and GSM (T-mobile and AT&T). It lacks a dedicated voice network -- 100 percent of the bandwidth  is used for data services, which means that voice calls would be treated as VoIP (not unlike Skype). speeds are about  5-8Mbps but the standard could evolve to 100 Mbps some day in the future. All of the big 4 cell phone compies are working on developing LTE, as of right now LTE is the clear front runner for the race to 4G speeds.

Currently, we are seeing the very beginning of 4G. Most of the cell companies know that it's going to be a while before we hit the 100Mbps goal but that doesn't stop them from using slogans like "America's fastest most advanced 4G network"