34% of iPhone 4 owners and 24% of BlackBerry users actually believe they have 4G

[alent1234]

FYI, the only carrier without any semblance of a next gen network is AT&T.

Verizon has LTE, considerably faster than their 3G. Sprint has their WiMAX, considerably faster than 3G. T-Mobile has been building the infrastructure to support HSPA+ on their GSM network for two years, making it just as fast as Wimax and LTE in a lot of cases. AT&T has just been riding their iPhone gravy train for years, without making any investments in next gen infrastructure or technologies. Heck, their LTE plans are to buy T-Mobile, kill their 3G/HSPA+, and use the spectrum for their LTE network.

since 2009 when i bought iphones AT&T has gone from UMTS to HSPA to HSUPA and now HSPA+

 

[dguy6789]

What do you all consider actual 4G?

Verizon is the only company using LTE atm, and all of the big four claim to have 4G. So what type of throughput would you each consider 4G?

BTW- On a technical basis none of the US carriers ever met the international standards for 3G, before people use that as a good standard

LTE and Wimax are 4G to me. They are both significantly faster than the typical 3G. HSPA+ is 3G. Taking your 3G network and deciding to call it 4G does not make it so. If HSPA+ is 4G then so is CDMA as they are both in the same realm of performance.(~1-3mbps) Whoever said that anyone in the US's implementation of HSPA+ is anywhere near as fast as Verizon's LTE is off their rocker, they aren't even close. Verizon's LTE tends to get at least 10mbps(double that is not terribly uncommon) while the fastest HSPA+ you could ever really hope to get on the rarest of circumstances would be pushing close to 4mbps.

 

[alent1234]

verizon's LTE network is empty compared to other carrier's HSPA+ networks that also support older devices

 

[Aikouka]

Whoever said that anyone in the US's implementation of HSPA+ is anywhere near as fast as Verizon's LTE is off their rocker, they aren't even close. Verizon's LTE tends to get at least 10mbps(double that is not terribly uncommon) while the fastest HSPA+ you could ever really hope to get on the rarest of circumstances would be pushing close to 4mbps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSPA+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution

LTE is by definition faster, but you're severely understating what HSPA+'s capability actually is. Look at some of the examples on the Wikipedia article of what companies are actually implementing. Most are 20Mbit+ and some are in the 40s.

 

[Nebor]

LTE and Wimax are 4G to me. They are both significantly faster than the typical 3G. HSPA+ is 3G. Taking your 3G network and deciding to call it 4G does not make it so. If HSPA+ is 4G then so is CDMA as they are both in the same realm of performance.(~1-3mbps) Whoever said that anyone in the US's implementation of HSPA+ is anywhere near as fast as Verizon's LTE is off their rocker, they aren't even close. Verizon's LTE tends to get at least 10mbps(double that is not terribly uncommon) while the fastest HSPA+ you could ever really hope to get on the rarest of circumstances would be pushing close to 4mbps.

False. I averaged around 10 megabit (in cities) and have seen peaks of 14 megabit on AT&T.

 

[snikt]

False. I averaged around 10 megabit (in cities) and have seen peaks of 14 megabit on AT&T.

On my Captivate I was averaging less than 3mb; with my new SGS2 on AT&T I've hit as high as 8mb.

 

[Doboji]

Is the ATT iPhone HSPA+?

 

[Stang289]

Is the ATT iPhone HSPA+?

No

 

[wirednuts]

ugh i hate shit like this. at work last year, when 4g was coming online, everyone told me that 4g meant 4 gigabit speeds. i simply replied, "no, it just means 4th generation. and there is a 4g spec but thats like 100mb speeds".

they told me i was smoking something and i was a complete idiot and they laughed. literally laughed at me. and i remember some time before that i was made a fool because i thought google bought youtube. "NO WAY" they said. "yahoo bought it, dumbass"...

ugh... thats all i can say... ugh

 

[wirednuts]

i think the battle is between LTE and WiMAX, and LTE has a HUGE upper hand just because they have more companies using it. WiMAX is all alone on sprint and their offshoots, and worse its not any sort of compatible with LTE so the days of using sprint phones to roam on verizon towers for free will be over. you wont be able to roam on verizon at all in 4g.

i think sprint is in trouble. they betted that WiMAX would dominate LTE but the speeds seem about the same and LTE coverage will dominate so... yeah, sprint is kinda fucked.

 

[ImDonly1]

ugh i hate shit like this. at work last year, when 4g was coming online, everyone told me that 4g meant 4 gigabit speeds. i simply replied, "no, it just means 4th generation. and there is a 4g spec but thats like 100mb speeds".

they told me i was smoking something and i was a complete idiot and they laughed. literally laughed at me. and i remember some time before that i was made a fool because i thought google bought youtube. "NO WAY" they said. "yahoo bought it, dumbass"...

ugh... thats all i can say... ugh

I hope your workplace is not in IT or computers at all.

 

[Aikouka]

I hope your workplace is not in IT or computers at all.

Sounds like what I'd expect from Best Buy.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

FYI, the only carrier without any semblance of a next gen network is AT&T.

Realize that many worldwide carriers aren't touting LTE yet. HSPA+ is being implemented practically everywhere. Carriers are pushing 21mbps, 42mbps, and more. This has already been covered time and time again that Sprint and Verizon saw EVDO Rev. A as the end of the road for 3G. Thus they both had to jump to 4G very quickly or get slaughtered in speeds.

The only reason AT&T and T-Mobile need to slap a 4G label on their HSPA+ deployments is for purely marketing purposes. I don't see any other phone touting HSPA+ as 4G worldwide.

 

[BenSkywalker]

LTE and Wimax are 4G to me. They are both significantly faster than the typical 3G. HSPA+ is 3G.

From the actual numbers I have seen, HSPA(not +) is faster then WiMax most of the time. This is why I get confused about people's definitions. ~5Mbps is 4G because it's on Sprint, but 8Mbps is 3G because it's on TMo or AT&T? This is why early on in the thread I asked people to give bandwidth numbers. I don't see an issue if people draw a line and say 'this is the minimum 4G speed IMO'. Instead, we get a bunch of cheerleaders backing their carrier of choice for what appears to be no logical reason.

 

[alent1234]

On my Captivate I was averaging less than 3mb; with my new SGS2 on AT&T I've hit as high as 8mb.

to me it seems that my old iphone 3GS averaged out faster on speed tests than my Inspire 4G

 

[snikt]

to me it seems that my old iphone 3GS averaged out faster on speed tests than my Inspire 4G

I've read that AT&T caps Android phones.

http://androidandme.com/2011/03/car...ndroid-phones-5x-slower-than-the-3g-iphone-4/

If this is true that would explain your results.

 

[dguy6789]

From the actual numbers I have seen, HSPA(not +) is faster then WiMax most of the time. This is why I get confused about people's definitions. ~5Mbps is 4G because it's on Sprint, but 8Mbps is 3G because it's on TMo or AT&T? This is why early on in the thread I asked people to give bandwidth numbers. I don't see an issue if people draw a line and say 'this is the minimum 4G speed IMO'. Instead, we get a bunch of cheerleaders backing their carrier of choice for what appears to be no logical reason.

It seems I'll have to do some more reading. I've read quite a few articles about speed tests in the past(none in the last month or so) on the various networks and I could have sworn that T-Mobile and AT&T's HSPA+ were topping out at 4mbps in most of them. If users can in fact realistically expect to get 8mbps on AT&T's HSPA+ network then I would say it is 4G.

 

[alent1234]

I've read that AT&T caps Android phones.

http://androidandme.com/2011/03/car...ndroid-phones-5x-slower-than-the-3g-iphone-4/

If this is true that would explain your results.

there was a reason for that. apple and other manufacturers have to certify their phones and software on carriers' networks. and when carriers deploy new tech they have to certify it internally as well.

the iphone 4 was the first HSUPA certified phone on AT&T

when the atrix and inspire first shipped they weren't certified for HSUPA on AT&T. i think the official name was 3gpp release 6 and they were certified for R5 only, forgot. they were only certified after they shipped and AT&T unlocked the capability on them.

this is why paper specs are useless buying guides half the time

lately i noticed i max out a little over 1000mbps download speeds and about the same upload speed. when i had my 3GS the max download speed i tested was around 3500

i've also read of rumors that there are special HSPA+ SIM cards and mine is the same one i've had for 2 years now. but i don't believe that since i'm getting HSUPA speeds now. the inspire 4G does have a wicked death grip though like the iphone 4, except worse in some cases

 

[tonygeor]

what n00bs

 

[Nebor]

lately i noticed i max out a little over 1000mbps download speeds and about the same upload speed. when i had my 3GS the max download speed i tested was around 3500

That's pretty sweet. I didn't realize they had phones with wireless gigabit connections.