Cutting Through the 4G Hype 283
crimeandpunishment writes "Cell phone companies are about to bombard us with advertising for the next big thing — 4G access. The first 4G phone, Sprint Nextel's EVO, comes out this week. But just how big a deal is 4G? Is it fast enough to warrant the hype, or are consumers better off waiting a while? AP technology writer Peter Svensson looks at the differences between 4G and 3G technologies."
4G? (Score:5, Informative)
Canadian carriers just upgraded their networks to 3G, so I'm guessing we won't hear about 4G until 2015.
a brief experience with 4G, since november (Score:5, Informative)
Raleigh-Durham, 4G since November as my primary home internet connection.
It doesn't work well in the rain or a thunderstorm. 6-7 Mbit down 1.5 or so up. That is as fast as the DSL connection I could get. I refuse to give money to Time Warner so that's out of the question.
The connection isn't as reliable as DSL or cable modem. It's kind of flaky and the DNS servers that come with Clearwire service are bad. Use Google's or opendns.
That said, it is basically a wireless DSL connection. It is way way faster than a 3G signal. Don't know how it will be on the EVO, but unless the iPhone 4G/HD blows me out of the water, when my iPhone 3G contract comes up in July, I'm going to Sprint to take advantage.
G definitions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Much ado about nothing (Score:4, Informative)
I found this article to be poorly written and researched. Including such weasely gems as:
For consumers, 4G means, in the ideal case, faster access to data. For instance, streaming video might work better, with less stuttering and higher resolution. Videoconferencing is difficult on 3G and might work better on 4G. Multiplayer video games may benefit too.
might may might maybe
Actually one other large difference - data + voice (Score:5, Informative)
So, I take it that the author of this article is happy just using EDGE, right? Since that's only distinguished from 3G by its speed?
You can't use data on EDGE during a phone conversation (nor receive calls). It's actually more annoying than you might think.
With both 3G and 4G you can do both at once.
Re:4G? (Score:5, Informative)
Simultaneous voice and data (Score:5, Informative)
When Sprint & Verizon roll out their 4G networks will they be able to handle simultaneous voice and data
My sources say yes [wikipedia.org] because 4G treats voice as VoIP.
700Mhz vs 1900Mhz vs 2500Mhz (Score:4, Informative)
AT&T pretty much sat that auction out, so I can't imagine their data service getting much better. I hope their pico cell strategy pans out.
3G is already capped (Score:3, Informative)
cdmaOne (Score:3, Informative)
CDMA is 3G. You could even make a decent argument that 3G is CDMA.
That depends on whether you're talking about cdmaOne or CDMA2000.
Re:G definitions (Score:4, Informative)
"CDMA" in the context of 2G is the transmission method - code division multiple access. The "CDMA" used by Verizon/Sprint is more properly "cdmaOne" (2G) or "CDMA2000" (3G).
Re:4G is used for what? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes they do here are my favorites..
http://www.chickenbrickstudios.com/games/projectinf [chickenbrickstudios.com]
http://www.chickenbrickstudios.com/games/cestos [chickenbrickstudios.com]
Re:Difference between 3G and 4G (Score:0, Informative)
The 3G standard in Europe is UMTS, which has a Wideband CDMA at its core.
Not _quite_ (Score:4, Informative)
If anybody wants to really push "4G" product (using it as its defining quality), he's for a surprise...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia [wikipedia.org]
Probably why that'll be 3G -> LTE actually; certainly why there's no S60v4 or 4xxx-series devices from Nokia.
Re:a brief experience with 4G, since november (Score:3, Informative)
"I refuse to give money to Time Warner"
I belive that Time Warner owns some of Clear Wire along with some other big companies. Time Warner also resells Clearwire service labled as Road Runner Mobile.
Re:4G is a big deal (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh c'mon (Score:2, Informative)
Re:a brief experience with 4G, since november (Score:3, Informative)
Time Warner is in for $550 million according to this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wimax-saved-sprint-clearwire-form-joint-venture-google-intel-among-backers/8750 [zdnet.com]
Re:Difference between 3G and 4G (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, they all run UMTS (3.5G) by now. (And 7Mb UMTS USB sticks for your laptop are not uncommon since at least five years ago.)
Re:4G? (Score:4, Informative)
Here in Japan, nationwide 4G is expected to be out by 2012. Docomo has already successfully street-tested 7Gbps 4G. I believe that's two orders of magnitude faster than Sprint's "4G".
Re:Wi-Fi (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Other way (Score:1, Informative)
Actually EDGE allows temporarily suspending the data connection (but retain the logical connection and IP address) to make or receive a voice call similar to V.92 modems.
GPRS, besides offering a lower bandwidth, has to completely terminate the data connection. For Web browsing this is not a big deal while for other purposes a proxy or tunnel may be used to hide the change of IP address.
Of course all this is only theoretical. The providers may not support these features at all.
Re:On paper it looks like a good phone. (Score:2, Informative)
Fully agree. Have the HTC Hero, and except for one emergency update (that turned it from "extremely slow" to "usable") nothing have happened. They promised a new version in November, but still haven't done anything. It will be my last HTC phone..
Re:On paper it looks like a good phone. (Score:3, Informative)
You should be able to update the Hero to 2.1 from the HTC site, and seeing how 2.2 was officially announced just a few weeks ago, I don't see what you're complaining about.
Re:Simultaneous voice and data (Score:1, Informative)
Unfortunately, not immediately. While LTE will be able to support VoIP with an IMS backbone, the complexity of the set-up is such that it will not be there initially. Instead, when voice is initiated the system will revert to 3G (for 2G/3G/LTE this is called "CS fallback", CS = Circuit Switched. Not sure what it's called for CDMA/EVDO).
Re:Simultaneous voice and data (Score:3, Informative)