All the major carriers either have a “4G” technology available or will soon be offering one. While they all seem very promising and fast none of them meet the ITU’s standard for 4G speeds. Technically, all of the wireless carriers in the US will be falsely advertising their services. With actual 4G standards still years away from deployment does this stand to seriously effect the image of actual 4G?
There is little truth to Sprint and T-Mobile’s released “4G technologies” with WiMAX and HSPA+. With speeds of less than 10 mbps 4G is more than a stones-throw away for the carriers, whose service needs to run at more than 100 mbps as part of the new standards. Verizon & AT&T’s LTE networks launching later this year and early next year aren’t technically 4G either; according to the ITU, a branch of the UN that defines international standards for telecommunications. The ITU has selected two winning technologies for true 4G networks in the future. LTE-Advanced and WiMax 2 (802.16m) compete in the near future. As soon as the first lawsuits emerge we’ll be the first to let you know.
“4G” Devices released & rumored:
- EVO 4G
- Epic 4G
- myTouch 4G
