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How AT&T Totally Flubbed 4G
adeelarshad82 writes "Turns out that AT&T may be lying about 4G. The company's two '4G' phones and its '4G' modem don't deliver 4G even by AT&T's own standards. In fact, test results show that the company is delivering '4G' devices that are actually slower than the carrier's own 3G devices. So how can they get away with this? Well, initially the International Telecommunications Union defined 4G as a bunch of super-fast technologies nobody used yet, but the ITU crumbled under pressure from various cell phone companies and now defines 4G as any cellular Internet network that's faster than what was considered the fastest technology in 2009. Between the revised 4G standards and a little fine print in its ads, AT&T is able to legally indemnify itself against the fact that its current 4G claim is totally worthless. While other carriers also claim that they have 4G networks, Verizon's LTE is the only technology which comes close to real 4G."
Standards bodies have become nothing but the whore of businesses.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
4G is in the eye of the beholder. As it always was.
Dog is my co-pilot.
The currently available technology is all 3G. Someone needs to sue these asshats for claiming 4G. Another example of marketing trumping engineering.
News of the Hour Corporations Lying hear more at 11. Honestly I am not even surprised I look at almost anything that's advertised these days and I'm so jaded I can't help but think what's the catch. Even on simple things like 2 for the price of 1 taco sales.
... the Internet speed stinks on ice.
At this moment the "Speed Test" app from speedtest.net shows 1173kbps down and 196kbps up.
All other aspects of the Atrix are great. I love it vs my old iPhone 3GS.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I'm sure glad our government doesn't kill innovation by forcing carriers like AT&T to actually deliver on the promises they advertise for their networks. AT&T is free to "innovate" a way to sell the same crap with a shiny new label.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
"Real 4G" is clearly whatever the cell service providers want it to be. Between the meaningless buzzwords in ads and promotional literature, and the alphabet soup of acronyms used to name specific data transmission schemes, it's no wonder so much confusion reigns about which service is "the best".
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The average consumer would already know this if they spoke about "4G" with anyone from the academic community. It isn't here yet.
Public relations.
Also helps to have a non-discerning customer base who are too willing to believe every iteration is better than the last instance.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
*gasp* Who would have thunk it? People knew that the moment the iPhone came on the scene, and they STILL stink!
the 3gees are no longer fashionable. 4gees wheres at now. even managed to offer less bandwidth with this "upgrade". AT&T has customer screwing down to a science
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Data caps and deceitful marketing eh? Sounds great. Why do so many people give them their money again?
LIES!
ALL LIES!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This whole "G" stuff has been vague, undefinable nonsense from the beginning, or at least since before anyone outside of the telecom industry had heard the term. The debates about whether EDGE was 2G or 2.5G (as if generations were subject to real/fractional values) was proof enough of this. Calling the 2nd iPhone model the "iPhone 3G" has proven to be a misstep on Apple's part, rather effectively confusing the heck out of its model generations, and forcing them to resort to nonsense like "3Gs" before reverting to something more sensible: an integer indicating which generation of the device it is. How about calling a phone technology by... its name. LTE, CDMA, EDGE, ETC. If you want to make a boast about how fast it is, do it like they used to do with modems: give us an actual numeric speed (e.g. 1200bps, 19.2kbps). Because this xG marketing nonsense is useless... and always has been.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Why can't they just quote what their average download speed is?
What's more, the ICU charges a small fortune for said standards documents.
Part of the blame is on the ICU - the carriers started advertising 4G before the standards came out, forcing the standards to meet the claims. This is no different from how Netscape and Microsoft killed HTML 3.1 when it finally came out and forced the W3C to adopt a nonsensical bunch of crap as a replacement. The fragmentation that followed permitted Microsoft to kill Netscape and caused much of the crap that followed. The W3C will be picking up the pieces for years.
Standards bodies should be flexible but they must ultimately be the law enforcement of all technology and crafts. They are the modern version of the guild hall, the corporations are merely the apprentices within.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
... the Internet speed stinks on ice.
At this moment the "Speed Test" app from speedtest.net shows 1173kbps down and 196kbps up.
Wow, After loading a slimmed down firmware on my G1, I get over 3 mbps
Because this xG marketing nonsense is useless... and always has been.
As long as it sells units and makes money it has a purpose.
You're just not ruthless or cynical enough to see that.
As for me, I'm jaded by the knowledge.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In the wired internet landscape, one number matters to this day... bps. When it was about modems, there were some slight variations in speed, but it was all about bps of your modem and the max bps of the carrier. Comcast beat Verizon DSL like a redheaded stepchild with bps until Verizon came out with FIOS, and Verizon returned the favor. They keep exchanging blows as to who is faster, but you can look up clearly on their website and find out which was faster. bps is like MPH, you know what it was and could explain it to someone simply.
However, this 3G/4G crap is just like the Justin Bieber/Ozzy Ozborne commercial. It's rapidly changing, confusing and stupid. The only reason to call something 3G vs 4G is to create new marketing speak. So I say kill the xG tag. Phones should be rated by how fast they can go, period, not by some nebulous xG bullshit. It only serves to confuse the customer and make it seem like it's better even though it's not, and thus give companies a reason to ever increase their prices unnecessarily.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
My sister was all hyped up to get the Sprint 4G phone. Only to find out there was no 4G coverage in her area (Phoenix metro area).
Are you getting the speed that they say you should? With the local DSL provider it is common for people's modems to be be arbitrarily set at a lower speed than what the modem and line can support.
The DSL provider here is supposed to be providing 5mb down and 768k up. In the probably 1500 DSL homes I have worked in, maybe 5 were set to 5mb down. The average was 1.5mb - with a large percentage set at 768k *down*.
I don't know about your area, but here they are statically set - in theory they are set to the maximum that the line conditions and distance from the station dictates. Most times they were randomly set by very poorly trained simians who installed them.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
4Gery
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
We're goin' to 5 G's!!
Only 7 more marketing campaigns until we reach "hexadecimal B"-gees. Complete with "that 70s show" tv commercial tie-ins and a coupon for a free pair of levis bell bottoms and a village people DRMed ringtone download. I can't wait!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Lies, damn lies, statistics and marketing.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
4G had a definition. 100 Mb/s for high mobility, 1Gb/s for low mobility.
Which were basically impossible goals to reach with current technology.
Enter HSDPA, LTE and EV-DO.
These technologies are significantly faster (or at least can be) than traditional '3G'.
So here's the problem. Are they 3.5G? 3G enhnaced? Are they close enough to 4G to warrant being called that?
The answer is... change the definition of 4G. Because, and lets be realistic here, No one is rolling out True 4G networks, not even close. But they are rollilng out technologies that are 2, 3 (even more) time faster than the current technology. To consumers, doubling performance or tripling it warrants more than 0.5. Which is a problem, because well, 4G actually means something. But once one guy starts using 4G, if you aren't either you fight with them in court, or you start using '4G' and let the definitions be damned and change them.
And when true 4G rolls around, it will itself probably be 3x faster than the current tech.
+1 - The Onion reference
any modern ADSL+ modem should be able to negotiate line speed on its own.. and your billing set the max at the dlsam side.. if they have their installers setting things like that on the modems then they have bigger problems.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Standards bodies should be flexible but they must ultimately be the law enforcement of all technology and crafts. They are the modern version of the guild hall, the corporations are merely the apprentices within.
Like The Sorcerer's Apprentice?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This may be the case for many devices on AT&T other than the iPhone 4.
The average consumer likely doesn't realize that the iPhone 4 is not actually 4G. The article really should have stated this explicitly.
To most people, the article will read as "These other phones are supposed to be faster than the iPhone 4 because they are newer, but the iPhone 4 still rocks!"
Boy AT&T you sure aren't doing well in the news today...0/2
Bieber (n): Common tabloid topic. See "Bat Boy"
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Thats the PHONE COMPANY. When did they ever meet anyone's expectations for very long? When did a regular customer not feel ripped off? When did the failure consumer protection, anti-trust laws, and monopoly markets ever feel like a good deal with a capital G?
Can you hear me now? Was that a pin that dropped? You just paid another $4G's for another 2Y contract for the very same FREE electrons that were once broadcast into Gilligan's Island reruns on channel 2. Now we're paying for that network bandwidth, while marooned on a desert island with real cannibals.....and on hold forever.
4G is one more G than 3 and twice as many as 2G. Thats a lot of G!. Now that you have 4G, and its still a cell phone that sucks 4 times as much, you better buy some more G or else you'll be a tiny little "g" and everyone will laugh at you....
I have a 7G phone. I just took out a sharpie and wrote 7 G's on it. You may now bow to my 7G superiority.
BTW, the volume on my stereo goes to 11.
Now, if you will excuse me I need to return to surfing on my "50meg" hi-speed internet connection.
Proverbs 21:19
Supposedly, AC prefers "shaved biebers" but I'm not really sure I want to know what that is, given his propensity for goatse man.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2036424&cid=35480444
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Pop along to www.3gpp.org and have a good read. For free.
3G and 4G are both marketing terms under the guise of technical specifications, using the minimum of actual specifications. It's like defining a particular fastener as "a length of material with a pointy end." Nobody can use that specification to create anything useful, or say anything about the product that technically meets that specification. The standards for both 3G and 4G are so broad as to be essentially useless for anything other than marketing, which is just the way the telcos want it. They want consumers to say "Oh look, a bigger number! I want a phone with the bigger number on it! Do they come in shiny? I'll take two!"
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I wouldn't defend WiMAX so strongly. We're all going to be on LTE eventually, even Sprint.
In spite of what the intentional vague summary may hint at, this is all about upstream bandwidth, not downstream. AT&T's "4G" devices are competitive with similar HSPA+ 14.4 devices when it comes to downstream bandwidth, which is why TFA doesn't even bother to mention it. It's upstream bandwidth that's capped: everything but the iPhone 4 is capped at 384Kbps.
However from AT&T's perspective they didn't flub 4G. As far as they're concerned they're running a content delivery network, not a content creation network. Every MHz they can deallocate from upstream bandwidth to downstream bandwidth is that much faster downloads their customers receive, which as most people are content consumers are all they care about in the first place. This is just AT&T realizing what wireline broadband providers have known for a long time: only the geeks care about highly asymmetrical connections.
Not to excuse any of this as being "good" - it makes a total farce of 4G among other things (not that T-Mo, VZ, and Sprint helped). But if the fact that carriers are moving to highly asymmetrical connections surprises you in any way, you haven't been paying very good attention to the state of the broadband market.
And the question is: "Who is the adolescent lesbian currently dating Selena Gomez?" I'll take "Famous Fails" for $800, Alex...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
you do realize AT&T haven't enabled full $G HSUPA speed for the atrix yet right?
I was thinking of getting one until I realized i would end p witht he same 3G/ edge mixture that I have to deal with now.
At least it is better than verzion. Where the speeds just taper off to uselessness without telling you why.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Which is real problem... once you've sold the current marginal improvement over 3G as "4G", how do you then sell real 4G a few years down the road without admitting that you were lying before?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You mean T-Mobile's spokesbimbo is lying to us???? If you can't trust hot chicks who can you trust?
Strippers!!! They're known the world over for there honesty and forthright conduct!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The only reason to call something 3G vs 4G is to create new marketing speak. So I say kill the xG tag.
The latter won't happen because of the former.
You, myself and every other person with subject matter knowledge know its completely retarded ... but the general population doesn't, and the marketers are throwing far more resources at it than we have to return fire with.
They've won this round, we'll have to wait until Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T or some other carrier has a distinct advantage and can provide the bandwidth consistently so they have a reason to go back to real values rather than marketingspeak.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Which is real problem... once you've sold the current marginal improvement over 3G as "4G", how do you then sell real 4G a few years down the road without admitting that you were lying before?
That's simple: call it 5G. And remember: we've always been in war with Eurasia.
Except bps does not factor in well with their network styles. When I had cable (worst 4 years of my internet experience... worse then even $2/hour AOL in the early 90's), my speeds were inconsistent, and frequently below 200kb/s when advertised as a 3mbps line
Since I switched to DSL, and then FIOS, I've seen a lot better consistancy in the speeds and lines. Perhaps it was a massive network mistake for my cable company in my area, but I never got 1/2 the advertised rate, even at 3am... Since then i've been consistantly 80%+.. and FIOS runs great.... Back then I used to explain it as "Cable had a higher maximum, but DSL is more consistant
Of course, some people argue the networks set up the same anyway, but i've never gone back to research how exactly they differ, I just knew at my home my statement was true... and DSL was a lot faster then cable.
Alternatively the Beiber represents the characteristic state separating "conventional" female appearance from "butch".
Yes but my point is that the 3G/4G tag adds even MORE confusion by creating an abstract layer. With cable and DSL, for cable to not get sued they had to say "speeds up to blahblah." They are weasel words, but there's not much you can do, it's still plain english, and the populace can quickly learn "oh wait... they said 'up to', sounds like marketing to me." It's just easier to catch the weasiliness and make a better informed decision. 4G is not plain english, it's an entire specification which has been co-opted and become a moving target to mean whatever the phone companies want.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I'd mod you up if I currently had mod points. The summary is garbage by not mentioning that it is upload speeds only that they are talking about. 99% of people are almost exclusively going to care about download speed.
I live in a so-called AT&T "4G" area with HSPA+ coverage. My shiny new HTC Inspire 4G gets 1,200 kbps down and 400 kbps up when I run the speed test application on it. My old iPhone 3G averaged 1,800 down and 600 up in the same area six months ago.
The perfectly non-blocking network is very asymmetrical -- every node would have inbound bandwidth equal to the sum of all outbound bandwidth from every node - e.g., a thousand node network, each node having a gigabit input and a megabit output. While this asymmetry is impractical in all but the smallest networks, it still influences networks architectures for the obvious reason.
BTW, the phone company (a.k.a., AT&T) has a business model based upon measured services, a 100-year tradition. They even built their network - not the Internet, rather SONET/ATM - with the ability to account for every bit transmitted. They lost that battle but never gave up on the networking war. Eventually, they will charge for every bit. You can count on it.
... the Internet speed stinks on ice.
At this moment the "Speed Test" app from speedtest.net shows 1173kbps down and 196kbps up.
All other aspects of the Atrix are great. I love it vs my old iPhone 3GS.
I benchmarked my T-Mobile G2 (using a USB-tethered laptop) at 7 mbit/sec. That's not too shabby, regardless of how many "G"s you have attached to it.
... the thing is so fast as it is that I never even noticed.
As it happens, I've been paying the extra five bucks a month for the T-Mobile's "4G" service. However, I'm going to repeat that test, because the SIM card in my G2 died Saturday, and the tech who replaced it told me, "Sir, the card you had only allowed 3G service: the new one will allow you to connect at the faster rate." Funny
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Where the speeds just taper off to uselessness without telling you why.
Is it really that hard to run a decent network? I mean, really?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You mean T-Mobile's spokesbimbo is lying to us???? If you can't trust hot chicks who can you trust?
Strippers!!! They're known the world over for there honesty and forthright conduct!
Well, if nothing else when it comes to a stripper you know exactly where you stand. The same can't be said for the sociopaths that run our cellular companies. Or most of corporate America, for that matter.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
*Should* and *is* are often different things. Such is the case in the city where I reside. We have a crappier than normal DSL provider.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Since when is Verizon the only one with "real" 4G? Tell that to my EVO that just pulled 12.47 mbps over WiMAX.
DSL has CLEARLY defined speeds. You order 10mbs service, the speeds right in the name! Yet it never gets to that speed. No-where near it. Then the ISP claims that speed is inside their network, they can't guarantee the rest of the internet. Yet you can do speed tests to the ISPs own servers and still not even get to 80% of the speed your paying for. How is this legal? How is it that the government lets this kind of thing go on and then try to blaim the problem on the customers themselves or the services they are trying to access? The ignorance of the public, the greed of the ISPs and the apathy of our elected officials will be the downfall of the internet. We will bandwidth cap, DRM and QOS ourselves into a segregated internet. Check out my blog! Oh... I'm on ATT... you're on Comcast? Shit. Did I see which show? Whats that? Can't see that on my network sorry.
No you just have to travel outside the cities, and major highways, and all cell networks disappear rapidly.
in some places you go as little as 5 miles from the major highways and verizon and AT&T both cut your cell phones down to phone calls only.
Multi million dollar homes, property values in the $100,000 an acre, and cell phone coverage of something equal to edge on the best of days.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Now AT&T is being shady... but people are like sheep when it comes to "latest and greatest" technology. Have you seen the Best Buy ad, where they say you can trade in your outdated technology for the new stuff? They show people buying something brand new, and then they immediately see something "better". It's ridiculous, but people buy into that crap.
Someone called my phone a dinosaur. It's an LG something that I make calls with and occasionally listen to MP3s with. It's only about 5 years old... but that is pretty old in phone years. I also only pay $70 a month for service for this AND my wife's phone. The only reason AT&T is "getting away with this" is because people will buy it. Cue the iFanboys with their "nuh uh!" comments.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
ITU is not the primary standards body for this, and their definition of 4G is irrelevant. Geeknet doesn't write COBOL standards either. 3G was defined by 3GPP (GSM -> WCDMA/UMTS/HSPDA) and 3GPP2 (CDMA2000). All 3G is based on CDMA. Now 3GPP has defined LTE, which is different and newer technology, OFDMA, so it's a genuine generational shift. That's 4G, no matter what the speed. It gets more bits per Hz though.
ATT and T-Mobile are flogging their HDPDA+ (WCDMA) networks as "4G", because under really good conditions, they can get more speed than older forms of 3G. But it's just a late-life kicker for 2000's technology. VZW, to their credit, already has LTE, which is the real 4G, while ATT will have it later. And Sprint/Clearwire's WiMAX is sort of 4G, though not equivalent to LTE.
There's a difference between strippers and corporate executives... there's a lot of things that strippers wont do for money!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
AT&T screws over its customers ..OK. But they are also screwing the investors? I mean, look at their P&L sheet. In the US there is very little competition, prices are sky high and even after such price gouging, the net income is 5% of your revenue? For the sake of comparison, top service providers in India routinely rake up 25-30% of their revenue in net-income. And, the place is far more competitive (> 15 operators), consumer prices are far lower.
Looking at it in another way, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for AT&T to do any price drop (or provide more for the same money) as it would effectively kill its bottom-line. So /. readers you may complain all you want about the crappy service from AT&T, but it is not going to get any better. There has to be a business innovation before any service gets any better.
1G - Analog technology (AMPS et al)
2G - Digital transmission (GSM, TDMA, CDMA et al)
3G - WCDMA (UMTS (aka the original 3G), HSDPA, EVDO et al)
4G - OFDM (LTE, WiMax et al)
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
Each nicely wrapped in a contract stored in a hot place.
It's also BS actually.
;)
Yes, LTE advance (release 10 of LTE actually, as it's an incremental improvement) has a top Category 8 device that peaks at close to 3 Gbps. Go to www.3gpp.org and fetch TS 36.306, the categories are in section 4.1. Base LTE goes from Cat1 to 5, and LTE-A added Cat 6 to 8.
Now you need to know only one thing: the last category is mostly never implemented. These standards are hugely complex, and competition is fierce. So people get carried away and promise the moon. Then engineers in standardization start the serious work, and see what's possible, and it's not the same. So to be polite, the last category is dimensioned to match the silly promises, and nobody implements it as it is too impractical (unacceptable power consumption to start with, reliance on huge spectrum not available and on too many antennas that wouldn't fit in a handset, just as a few examples).. And the lower are made to be practical.
In basic LTE, the last category 5 was 300 Mbps downlink. What's implemented in practice today is Cat3 at 100 Mbps DL. Maybe some will push to Cat4 (150 Mbps) for bragging rights, but it'll make little difference in the field (we're talking peak rates here, which is only possible on a small part of a cell).
In LTE-A (R10), the last category 8 is ~3 Gbps DL. And the previous practical categories 6 and 7? Well, they're 300 Mbps. Yes you read it well, that's a factor of 10 difference. That should tell you all you need to know about Gps speed.
Today, power is already a challenge with WiMAX, which is 2 Rx chains and 10 MHz. LTE is 2 Rx chains and 20 MHz. LTE-A to meet 1 Gbps would need 70 MHz and 4 Rx chains (for 4x4 MIMO in DL) for example. Nobody has this contiguous spectrum, so that means carrier aggregation, at least 2 bands in practice. So you need 8 Rx chains, which draw power. That's a factor of 4 increase on the RF side. And the baseband is more complex too. All that while the first base (R8) LTE handsets are power challenged.
So please people, get real and use common sense. All this talk of Gpbs speed (even in static) is getting embarrassing. Sure, it's easy to do and perfectly possible on a demo set-up where power and footprint (for all the antennas) are no issue. If you talk real life, it's a different thing.
Besides this, LTE is still a very good standard a significant improvement on what we have. And LTE-A will also be a significant improvement too. But instead of focusing on silly peak rates, go to the 3GPP web site and look at the performance assessment for LTE-A for cell average. You'll find that LTE advanced is expected to be 40 to 60% more efficient in average than LTE. And this is a big gain.
Last point, because we're on Slashdot and we can talk real tech, you need to understand that peak rate doesn't matter much now. Seriously, WWAN faster then WiFi (which is also BS with talk of 600 Mbps, but that's a different story. On portable device it's 20 to 30 Mbps typically)? What matters now is handling the data explosion, and this means improving the network capacity. People always push peak rates as it's more sexy for the average Joe, but that's capacity that matters. Even for you. But it's certainly less sexy and harder to explain.
Still, whenever you hear about higher peak rates, understand that the features underlying the improvement will in practice not be used for higher peak rates, but for increased capacity. Example: MIMO. LTE-A goes up to 8x8 MIMO in Cat8, but that won't be used in mainstream product (and maybe never, as doing a complex chip for a niche market looks very expensive). But you can still have the 8 antennas at the BS, and only 2 at the terminal, and do multi-users MIMO with 4 concurrent users, each using 2 SM MIMO layers. That's really what the standard is made for, and it will increase the network capacity for our benefit.
Thanks for reading so far. I needed the venting on that topic
It doesn't matter what sim card you have, it's the phones modem that matters. A sim card just says who you are to the network.
AT&T has been screwing up since they switched to 3G a few years back. I had /perfect/ service with their 2G on my cell, never a dropped call, never fought for bars.
Now? Not so much, so forgive me if I'm not surprised/don't care about 4G being a mess.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?