What 4G Speed Means for You

So you’re  sitting at home, watching T.V., and you see endless ads saying that this network has 4G and this one doesn’t, this network was the first, and this one doesn’t have anything at all.  And all this time the carriers try and convince you that you must have 4G, and you need it now.  So what’s the truth about 4G?  It’s semi complicated.

Let get the term 4G straightened out first.  Technically according the the ITU, some three letter international organization that defines tech standards, no carrier in the U.S has 4G yet.  4G is largely defined by the bandwidth and speed the carrier is able to offer, not so much the technology used.  It turns out the infrastructure in the U.S. is kinda behind the times.  What Verizon, T-mobile, and Sprint offer isn’t 4G.  T-mobile’s offering is more or less 3.5G.  Sprint offers a technology that will someday be able to handle 4G speeds, but isn’t widely adopted and is expensive.  Verizon and AT&T will use the same standard known as LTE, but in it’s current form isn’t considered 4G.  So technically in the U.S. there is no 4G, just faster 3G.

Ok, that defines this whole 4G mess but doesn’t really explain what it means for you.  What does 4G mean for you?  Well, nothing really.  Technology and features aren’t anywhere near being able to do anything with that kind of bandwidth.

I’ll try and make this easier to understand.  Say you have a regular phone.  A regular phone has no requirements for that kind of speed.  Voice quality with current and projected hardware barely fills the bandwidth for 2G specs.  It’s just not needed to carry voice and texts through the air wave as much as carriers might want you to think.

Well there’s always web surfing.  But this is still wrong.  When you surf the web on a regular phone you largely visit specialized versions of the web page that are highly compressed and dumbed down to fit the needs of your cell phone.  Technically 3G speeds are way to fast for this at the moment.  Most of the time the hardware inside of the cell phone can’t process the web page you receive as fast as you receive it.

Well, there’s always that picture message.  And that is about the only place you will see any difference with 4G speeds.  You’ll download that picture grandma Betsy sent to you a half second faster.  Truthfully, these pictures are so highly compressed, almost no bandwidth is needed to send them.

But you don’t have a regular phone, your special and own a smart phone.  Well, I’ll admit that smart phones have some more capabilities then regular phones.  But the hardware still isn’t up to snuff.  Smart phones, even with as advanced as they are, have a difficult time processing web pages.  This is because specialized engines are needed to make those web pages happen on your phone.  It takes a lot more to see that pinch to zoom thing then you think.  Honestly, you can tether you phone to your computer, and use your phone’s data connection to visit the same web page your phone does, and the computer will process it and display it faster then the phone with the same data connection.

But then there’s the picture messaging.  Well smart phones use the same standard as regular phones, meaning they are compressed and sent at the same size.  There is no difference in the data otherwise.

In fact the only place smart phones will see a difference in the speed is for tethering to computers, and video chatting.

So what does 4G mean to you?  Very little.  It’s true that a larger pipeline for bandwidth and faster bandwidth will help send and receive data faster, but hardware is years out from supporting that.  I hope the next time you see one of those ads you feel more educated now.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.