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."

Comments

What's in a name ?

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Personnally, I'll wait for mobiles that go to 11G

First large-scale LTE in the world?

[ckret]

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".

Duh...

[Ecuador]

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...

Re:Insert more coins to continue

[commodore64_love]

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.