The “4G” wars currently going on in the U.S. are quite a sad tale indeed. Right now, the two big next-gen technologies are WiMax and LTE. In regards to T-Mobile’s claims that they are the “nation’s largest 4G network” — that’s crap plain and simple. Anyone who believes HSPA+ is a 4G technology needs to have their head examined. How they get away with false advertising as misleading as that is beyond me. It’s nothing more than a slightly tweaked UMTS Technology.
Moving on, AT&T and Verizon have chosen LTE as their next-gen network while Sprint has maintained their affinity for Clearwire’s WiMax solution. Both are decently faster than your typical HSDPA/HSUPA network, but both are a far, far from being “true 4G”. And anyone who argues against that point really doesn’t have a case. Instead, look forward to WiMax 2 and LTE-advanced for real 4G speeds that aren’t merely a small upgrade over current speeds.
The Official definition and specs that classify a network as “4G”:
An IMT-Advanced cellular system must have target peak data rates of up to approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access, according to the ITU requirements.
Put simply, 100Mbps up or down is required. 1st-gen LTE and WiMax don’t come anywhere close. So sorry, Sprint. While you correctly point out that your competitors upcoming highspeed networks aren’t true 4G, you fail to point out that yours isn’t either. That is all.
Via: MobileCrunch
