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ITU Rules That WiMax, LTE Don't Qualify As 4G
GMGruman writes "It's official: All those ads and vendor claims about 4G services being offered today or being right around the corner are fiction. The international standards body ITU has ruled that Clearwire's WiMax network and the LTE systems that Verizon and others are just starting to roll out are not in fact 4G services. Oops."
Personnally, I'll wait for mobiles that go to 11G
You know, new generation of tech is specifically meant to address the "limited data rates , and limited bandwidth due to over-congested areas" stuff; at least in theory.
One that hath name thou can not otter
LTE-Advanced did qualify for 4G,
http://www.3gpp.org/ITU-R-Confers-IMT-Advanced-4G
but it's just a set of standards for now afaik, that still need to be implemented.
Actually, no. The other way around.
ITU includes EDGE in "3G" - but no carrier does it AFAIK, despite current revisions of EDGE being close to the speed of first "real" 3G/UMTS; and future revisions surpassing it noticeably.
At least with currently available infrastructure of LTE, there should be decently straightforward upgrade path to LTE Advanced (the "true 4G" apparently...). Maybe they're fed up mainly with WiMax, which does seem more like a quick marketing gimmick.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Some marketing drones who don't understand the technologies they're pushing have made a mistake and mislabeled them while attempting to make them sound better than they are.
I'm sure they could come up with some new advertising slogan... Lessee there was the old standard, 3G, and we're so much better than THAT. But, we cannot say we meet the new standard, 4G. What we need is something that's better than 3... I've got it!
Get your piece of the Pi! 3.14159G
<grin>
Ya, it'll never work; just Pi in the sky.
I was using limited as in artificially limited. Most providers won't give you what the current technology provides. They will QOS it on the backbone like it's nobody's business .
As for the over-congested areas , they could de-congest those by adding more base stations with narrower angle antennas.But they won't. The only reason they'd rather shovel money into this tech rather than more of the old is because this way they can get more profit from either phone sales or the usual 2 year contract they come with.
And after they do that , the areas will still be congested same as they have been with 3.5G and 3G and gprs/edge before those.
Maybe the phones themselves are 4G compatible, but the service isn't there for the phones.
No, like you said, you're in the US. You can only win a lawsuit here if you're a multi-billion dollar corporation. Sorry.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The ITU's current technical definition in no way affects our plans to launch the world's first large-scale LTE network later this year.
Ahem... Stockholm and Oslo already did that while back. I do think they are part of what you call "the world".
Actually they might have a case here, since at Sprint you can find stuff all over about 4G Wireless Broadband Network and 4G Coverage and Speeds and First and Only Wireless 4G which clearly they can't provide, since their speeds seem a bit far from 4G standard specs.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Actually it is MORE qualified at ~21Mbps, but still not the 100Mbps needed for 4G
It seems kind of obvious, reading that Verizon's LTE can give 5 - 12Mbit and WiMax 3 - 6Mbit, doesn't it? How can they advertise that as 4G when my current 3G network (Cosmote in Greece) offers HSPA+ at up to 21Mbit and while I don't have an HSPA+ device to test that, I do get the 3-7Mbit that my HSDPA device promises. Now that I look at the specs, my N900 at 10/2 capability should be even faster than my 7.2Mbit usb modem, perhaps I should benchmark it to make sure and throw away the modem...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
. . . whatever the ITU is . . .
The ITU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union is pretty damn important. They define all sorts of worldwide standards for the telecommunication industry.
If you visit Geneva, take a walk by their headquarters.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Not sure that it matters. When oil companies started marketing Type II Natural oil as "synthetic" the trade/standards committee called foul. So the oil companies went to court, found a judge to declare "if the oil acts like synthetic, even though it's natural, it can be marketed as 'synthetic' on the bottle." Now you can't be sure if your oil is a True Type IV synthetic built in a lab, or natural oil from the ground.
So the cellular companies will just find some compliant US judge to declare their service is "as fast as G4" and can be marketed as 'G4' on the label, without violating false advertising laws. Done deal.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I guess that ITU - the organization that defines what constitutes as 4G and what doesn't - does know what 4G means. And apparently, they think that LTE is just not big enough leap that it could be compared to the difference between GSM and UMTS, for example.
It is kinda like Web 3.0. A marketing term we hear every now and then when yet another company tries to claim that they've reinvented the web... But the difference is never comparable to that between 1.0 and 2.0 (the transition from company websites to social media and user generated content) so we haven't started calling any such technologies/services/concepts as Web 3.0... Even if they have been new.
>>>class action lawsuit
It didn't work the last time Sprint advertised a "3G" phone, sold it to customers, and then when they rolled-out their network, the phone did not work (incompatible). Doubtful a lawsuit would succeed this time either.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Marketing claims to have a number. Engineers say otherwise.
Scott Adams finds more material to write about.
. . . is there are so many to choose from. If I were running on of these money machines, I would call my data service 100G. I would say "we are so many Gs above the rest that your messages will get there BEFORE you send them." That is called puffing and is perfectly legal. I would advertise hot babes and sexy guys 100Ging all over the place, telling the world that 100Ging is like sexting but feels like real sex. I would leave the ITU, IETF, and IEEE to my standards body representatives, who like to travel all over the world, stay at nice hotels, eat at fine restaurants, sightsee, and get our latest patents turned into the next set of standards.
The international standards body ITU has ruled that Clearwire's WiMax network and the LTE systems that Verizon and others are just starting to roll out are not in fact 4G services.
Are not "in fact" 4G services? Unless the ITU has some sort of trademark on "4G", that is a ridiculous claim. Ultimately the marketplace will decide what is 4G and what isn't, and at this point it looks like the ITU is up for more ridicule than Sprint / Clearwire.
I understand that LTE is significantly different from its predecessors, which gives it as good a reason as any to claim to be "4G". Is "LTE-Advanced" so different from "LTE" to rationally claim that it should be "4G" and "LTE" not be?