If you exist on a carrier like Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T, they are taking your money for something they're calling "4G" and not delivering it at all. I'll go ahead and break it down by carrier in order from least sneaky to needing to be sued.
Sprint:
Even though they launched the first pre-4G network in the United States, they're delivering speeds well below that. The technology is called WiMax and it typically gets up to 6 Mbps in good conditions. This is ACTUALLY a pre-4G technology. They launched a whole new network in cooperation with Clear and it's partners and provided the necessary backhaul to make it work properly and consistently. It's not in a whole lot of places or supported by a whole lot of phones, but it gets the job done with about as much speed as a home DSL internet connection. Note that WiMax is NOT 4G. To actually use that term and not be a filthy stinking liar you need to be over 100 Mbps. Not even close. Oh and wait...... there's a $10 upcharge for "4G". Remember, that's "4G" you're not even getting.
T-Mobile:
T-Mobile actually has a 3G network. I don't care if you want to call it UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, it's still 3G. They took their existing 3G network, beefed it up a bit, but still using 3G technologies, and called it 4G. Now let's be clear, T-Mobile actually did an amazing job of the whole thing. They consistently beat Sprint's WiMax in both speed and latency in any advertised HSPA+ area. With my T-Mobile G2, I regularly get 6 Mbps down and close to 3 Mbps up and I'm running with a phone capable of a theoretical 14.4 Mbps down and 5.76 Mbps up. I would guess that I'm coming pretty close to the maximum real upload speeds of the phone, and about 2-3 Mbps off the download. Still not 100 Mbps and certainly not 4G.
AT&T:
So if you were wondering who the target of this article would be, let's just be very very clear. AT&T has pretty much taken the term 4G and done whatever the hell it wants with it. First, it decides that not only is it going to label it's existing 3G network 4G, but it then decides it's not even going to upgrade it. That's right, AT&T has not upgraded it's network yet it's selling phones labeled "4G" such as the Veer 4G, Atrix 4G and Inspire 4G and selling 4G branded service. They'll sell you that service in your hometown even if they have no plans of deploying it there.
I don't know if any of you remember a year or so back when AT&T made a huge stink about upgrading its towers to HSPA 7.2 Mbps just because T-Mobile did the same thing, but basically its a repeat performance here. It's just trying to keep up with T-Mobile where marketing lingo is concerned and doing nothing about actually improving it's network to match. Actually what's even funnier about it this time is that the iPhone, which is marketed by both AT&T and Apple as a 3G device, consistently gets faster speed test scores than any of its phones labeled "4G" I don't know if this is a result of poor radio performance on the Android handsets or AT&T neutering them to keep its network from taking a huge dump, but the whole thing is basically a joke at this point.
I actually took the time to read the AT&T "4G Blog" they put up because they have so many people confused at this point... The part that stands out at me is this:
"AT&T has deployed HSPA+ to virtually 100% of our nation's fastest mobile broadband network, which enables 4G speeds when combined with enhanced backhaul."
It doesn't take much to pick this apart like crazy. In the same breath they tell the customer something that's true and then make the whole thing a lie. They call their current "4G" network HSPA+ and advertise all over the place that they have "4G", but then they tell us that not all of the footprint labeled with that same "4G" technology is actually getting "4G" speeds. How much AT&T footprint is actually getting this "enhanced backhaul"? Who the hell knows. Verizon would tell you that Ma-Bell doesn't have a map for that. My first guess would be very little.
In the This Is My Next review of the Veer 4G, Josh Topolski tells us that his shiny new "4G" branded phone gets about 2 Mbps in an area that AT&T considers fully converted to HSPA+. Downtown freaking New York.
Verizon:
While less of a liar, it's LTE network which was launched late 2010 is fetching speeds of 10-20 Mbps on average and topping out around 30. Not 100, but far better than anything else out there at the moment. I might even be nice enough to let them use the "4G" term just for being the highest tier liar out there. We'll just lower the standard to 30 Mbps..... instead of the 2 Mbps that AT&T finds acceptable.
Did I mention that Verizon doesn't up-charge you for using such a fast network? Did I also mention that they're not running around calling EVDO Rev. A a "4G" network?
Do any of these increased speeds mean a damn thing?
Not really.
All of these carriers have one huge problem. All of it means squat. Even if AT&T has the crappiest, slowest, most deceptive "4G" network and Verizon comes out looking like a saint, every carrier with the exception of Sprint is limiting the amount of data you can download over these connections. T-Mobile has 2 and 5 Gig "soft caps" which throttle your speed down if you exceed those limits. AT&T has a 2 Gig hard cap which will start charging you overage. Verizon is currently working on the plan for a smartphone data cap set to launch before the iPhone 5 this fall. I'm assuming Sprint has avoided this problem due to its "4G" up-charge which would account for all the overage fees it would have collected anyway.
What good is a super fast 10000000 Mbps wireless connection with a 2 Gig cap. That just means you're going to hit the cap faster, and in turn, make your wireless company of choice some extra overage fees. Great for investors and Wall Street, terrible for you.
For the same money (sometimes less money actually) and speeds, Comcast will give you 250 Gigs of data consumption and even after that soft-cap, you really have to be downloading the whole Internet for them to even send a nasty letter. I don't recall hearing about a person actually being shut off or charged extra.
Conclusion:
So what's the end of the story? Don't let your wireless carrier get away with lying to its customers. At the end of the day, they're not just lying to everybody else, they're lying to you, and taking your money to do it. Don't buy a phone because it says "4G" on the end and certainly don't let your carrier tell you they offer 4G service without some sort of proof that they're providing speeds that are at least faster than 3G.
If I had it my way, I'd start a big 'ole lawsuit and get them all in line, but I haven't the time or money, merely anger to run off of. Feel free to take my place.
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