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A quick reminder that 4G != LTE. The 4G specification requires a minimum speed [1] so LTE was launched to avoid exactly this minimum. It seems that the companie

A quick reminder that 4G != LTE. The 4G specification requires a minimum speed [1] so LTE was launched to avoid exactly this minimum. It seems that the companies did it right by launching LTE instead of 4G as they could have lost their 4G status, while now they could drop as low as 3G speeds and still be called LTE (which is ironic on itself). This wasn't commented at all in the article, using 4G and LTE interchangeably which I find troubling. [1] 100Mbit/s for high-speed transit areas and 1GBit/s for low-speed transit areas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#Technical_understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#Technical_understanding

mhurron 10y ago
> using 4G and LTE interchangeably which I find troubling It follows the colloquial usage though.
- grecy 10y ago
  > It follows the colloquial usage though. ....set by Marketers working for Cell phone companies who are very happy to trick you into thinking you have a faster service than you do. Source: Worked for a cell phone company that was ecstatic to roll out new towers and tout "4G for all". They were LTE towers, with a back haul incapable of 3G speeds.
mherdeg 10y ago
My go-to reference on the situation is https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/essay_3g_and_me https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/essay_3g_and_me. Like Keith says, more important than whether you have 3G, 4G, or LTE is: ""How much spectrum has the carrier licensed in my city, and how much is allocated to this kind of modulation? How many other people am I sharing the local tower with? In other words, how big is my cell, and how many towers has the carrier built or contracted with? How much throughput are my cellmates trying to consume? How much throughput has the carrier built in its back-end network connecting to the tower? You might notice that all of these meat-and-potatoes factors involve the carrier spending money, and they all involve gradual improvement in behind-the-scenes infrastructure that's hard to get customers excited. Persuading you to buy a new cell phone with a sophisticated modem and sign up for a two-year contract is a different story. So they don't sell you something measurable where they could be held accountable; they sell how sweet it feels to be using a sophisticated radio modem protocol to talk to them. … If the carrier sold you "384 kbps Internet access anywhere in the coverage area, outdoors," that would be something you could hold them accountable for. The carrier might even have to put a brake on signing up new customers until it could build new towers or license more spectrum for everybody to share, if it made that guarantee.""
- lostlogin 10y ago
  I've never known a carrier (or isp) to offer any speed without a "*experience may vary" type disclaimer. Is this different in the US?
  - monocasa 10y ago
    God, no. I think this is one of those "would be nice if" hypotheticals.
  - dboreham 10y ago
    Nope. Physics is the same everywhere.
    - subway 10y ago
      And conveniently, from a user's perspective, damn near impossible to discern from poor network management.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        You either meant inconveniently or from the ISPs perspective.
        pdpi 10y ago
        "And conveniently [for the ISPs], from a user's perspective, damn near impossible to discern from poor network management"
        subway 10y ago
        pdpi for the win. (And ambiguous phrasing for the loss)
    - noobermin 10y ago
      The speed of light in vacuum is a constant, but depending on the medium (ie., frequent scattering), the time it will take for a signal to reach from point A to point B will be much more than the time it takes for a light wave to cover the same distance in vacuum.
sampo 10y ago
> using 4G and LTE interchangeably which I find troubling I think in Europe HSDPA, HSUPA and HSPA+ were more consistently called 3.5G, 3.75G and perhaps 3.9G, so 4G and LTE can be synonyms. In America, operators are marketing HSPA+ as 4G, so then there is a need to specify when 4G is LTE and when not.
- kccqzy 10y ago
  Exactly. I can confirm this is the case in Singapore too. An HSPA+ network is labeled as 3G on the iPhone. In the US, when I see 4G on my phone I know it's going to be slow.
  - briankwest 10y ago
    I call that FauxG! ;)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  At least in the nordics the system seems to be something like this: 1G = NMT 2G = GSM 3G = UMTS 4G = LTE
  - noselasd 10y ago
    Which is also what the standard bodies, mainly 3GPP, that produces all the technical documents for these systems (architecture, protocol specs., functional behavior, frequencies, coding schemes, security algorithms and so on) calls their technology.
fulafel 10y ago
> The 4G specification requires a minimum speed [1] so LTE was launched to avoid exactly this minimum. LTE is a name for a specific connectivity technology, it's a parallel to UMTS in the previous generation, not to 4G or 3G. It was going to be launched independent of whether it met the 4G minimum criteria. Standards-wise, LTE predates 4G. It initially looked like WiMAX might reach the 4G criteria first, but it tanked and then we were left with waiting for LTE-Advanced.

mhurron 10y ago

> using 4G and LTE interchangeably which I find troubling It follows the colloquial usage though.

grecy 10y ago
> It follows the colloquial usage though. ....set by Marketers working for Cell phone companies who are very happy to trick you into thinking you have a faster service than you do. Source: Worked for a cell phone company that was ecstatic to roll out new towers and tout "4G for all". They were LTE towers, with a back haul incapable of 3G speeds.

mherdeg 10y ago

My go-to reference on the situation is https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/essay_3g_and_me https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/essay_3g_and_me. Like Keith says, more important than whether you have 3G, 4G, or LTE is: ""How much spectrum has the carrier licensed in my city, and how much is allocated to this kind of modulation? How many other people am I sharing the local tower with? In other words, how big is my cell, and how many towers has the carrier built or contracted with? How much throughput are my cellmates trying to consume? How much throughput has the carrier built in its back-end network connecting to the tower? You might notice that all of these meat-and-potatoes factors involve the carrier spending money, and they all involve gradual improvement in behind-the-scenes infrastructure that's hard to get customers excited. Persuading you to buy a new cell phone with a sophisticated modem and sign up for a two-year contract is a different story. So they don't sell you something measurable where they could be held accountable; they sell how sweet it feels to be using a sophisticated radio modem protocol to talk to them. … If the carrier sold you "384 kbps Internet access anywhere in the coverage area, outdoors," that would be something you could hold them accountable for. The carrier might even have to put a brake on signing up new customers until it could build new towers or license more spectrum for everybody to share, if it made that guarantee.""

lostlogin 10y ago
I've never known a carrier (or isp) to offer any speed without a "*experience may vary" type disclaimer. Is this different in the US?
- monocasa 10y ago
  God, no. I think this is one of those "would be nice if" hypotheticals.
- dboreham 10y ago
  Nope. Physics is the same everywhere.
  - subway 10y ago
    And conveniently, from a user's perspective, damn near impossible to discern from poor network management.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      You either meant inconveniently or from the ISPs perspective.
      - pdpi 10y ago
        "And conveniently [for the ISPs], from a user's perspective, damn near impossible to discern from poor network management"
      - subway 10y ago
        pdpi for the win. (And ambiguous phrasing for the loss)
  - noobermin 10y ago
    The speed of light in vacuum is a constant, but depending on the medium (ie., frequent scattering), the time it will take for a signal to reach from point A to point B will be much more than the time it takes for a light wave to cover the same distance in vacuum.

sampo 10y ago

> using 4G and LTE interchangeably which I find troubling I think in Europe HSDPA, HSUPA and HSPA+ were more consistently called 3.5G, 3.75G and perhaps 3.9G, so 4G and LTE can be synonyms. In America, operators are marketing HSPA+ as 4G, so then there is a need to specify when 4G is LTE and when not.

kccqzy 10y ago
Exactly. I can confirm this is the case in Singapore too. An HSPA+ network is labeled as 3G on the iPhone. In the US, when I see 4G on my phone I know it's going to be slow.
- briankwest 10y ago
  I call that FauxG! ;)
digi_owl 10y ago
At least in the nordics the system seems to be something like this: 1G = NMT 2G = GSM 3G = UMTS 4G = LTE
- noselasd 10y ago
  Which is also what the standard bodies, mainly 3GPP, that produces all the technical documents for these systems (architecture, protocol specs., functional behavior, frequencies, coding schemes, security algorithms and so on) calls their technology.

fulafel 10y ago

> The 4G specification requires a minimum speed [1] so LTE was launched to avoid exactly this minimum. LTE is a name for a specific connectivity technology, it's a parallel to UMTS in the previous generation, not to 4G or 3G. It was going to be launched independent of whether it met the 4G minimum criteria. Standards-wise, LTE predates 4G. It initially looked like WiMAX might reach the 4G criteria first, but it tanked and then we were left with waiting for LTE-Advanced.