I can't believe anyone thought this was a good idea. Not only are they calling something 4G that isn't, but tricking people into thinking their phones were upgraded out of nowhere...? It's mean!
Unless, of course, this trick has had the placebo effect on people. Maybe just by seeing the 4G symbol all those users now feel like their iPhones are surfing the Web so much faster.
Hi Alan, excellent video! I was aware of the ITU "deal" to "broaden" 4G definition for operators' benefit, but Apple's collusive participation is scandalous, though not surprising! So now we have 4G iPhones! Fantastic!
But I would also note that plain LTE was not 4G technology anyway, it was LTE-A(dvanced) that ITU had ratified (together with Wimax 2 or .16m).
Now they accept pretty much everything as 4G, to the confusion of consumers. I guess the 3G bubble didn't teach us a lesson?
AT&T and T-Mobile for months have been confusing consumers by calling their HSPA and HSPA+ networks "4G." T-Mobile proclaims it's "America's largest 4G network." It's faster the EDGE, but it's not LTE, and the latency is often significantly greater.
Also, HSPA+ has different data rates, ranging in a few increments from, I think, 14.4Mbps to 42Mbps, and conceivably even faster with new technology. This is all the theoretical maximum, not real world speeds. Also, different speeds are available from the same cellular operator in different parts of the country, so "4G" might be 14.4Mbps in one city and 42.Mbps in another city.
I think Verizon advertises LTE downloads at real world rates of 5Mbps to 12Mbps. Those are pretty accurate.
Thanks for the video blog, Alan. The effort to make 3G into 4G continues as it has foryears. Perhaps even the advent of full 4G will go unnoticed once it really happens, since so many will think it already occurred!
LED lightbulbs will be used not only for home and business lighting automation, but possibly also for locating shoppers inside stores and transmitting data at hundreds of megabits per second.
Businesses helped neighbors with Internet access and mobile device charge-ups during Sandra. Following that example, enterprises should consider preparing Internet disaster plans to help the public during disasters.
Verizon's one-data-plan-for-all-devices could revolutionize mobile data by making it practical to have multiple devices share a plan, and thus encourage users to cellular-equip all their portable appliances.
There are reports out there that say LTE providers want to throttle their services to protect wireline broadband. This, with Verizon dropping naked DSL? This, with LTE requiring as much deep fiber as wireline? Think again!
To date, smartphone apps have only been able to work with 50Meg chunks of information. Well, recent technical advances have been able to boost that number to 4Gbytes. Consequently, developers will be able to work with more complex data types. But will wireless networks be able to handle the additional traffic?
Nicole and Kim (and their respective accents) request things of Siri, the iPhone 4S virtual assistant, to see what she's capable of. The result? Not much.
If RIM has fallen behind, and Microsoft was never there, smartphone-wise, who's keeping them in the game? The mobile operators! Why? Because mobile operators don't want a few giant handsets controlling their destiny.
Google bid on spectrum once, but it can get into the cellular carrier business a cheaper way by becoming a mobile virtual network operator. Since Apple is looking at that approach, we may get our phone service from our handset vendors in the future.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
Email This
