Should LTE be dubbed 4G?

Should LTE be called 4G?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 57.1%

  • No

    Votes: 21 42.9%
  • Total voters
    49
vzta22 said:
Obviously you only chose what you wanted to read and ignored any reference to speed.
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The bottom line is that the customer is sold a product and not a technology. Whether it is 2G, 3G, 4G or whatever, the network provider should not be marketing the technology but the retail product on the shelf.
 
And yet the ITU have yet to define 3G let alone 4G. When are people going to catch on to the fact that these are marketing terms and not matters of technology where the ITU has a say?

On the orders of magnitude thing:
Maximum speed of 3G (non-hsdpa): 384kb/s
Maximum speed of 2G (EDGE): 473.6 kb/s
Result does not compute ;)

Here is a challenge. The first one that can offer a usable high speed connection can call it 4G. Let's make it a conservative 50GB for R350. Hell, you could even call it the 50 pigeons network if you want to. :p

SteveO said:
Either way, HSPA+ is plain and simple NOT 4G, Cell C needs to get over it now.
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People need to learn to read before criticizing. Cell C was merely asked for comment that was not in line with your critcism in any case. Or is this just a personal gripe?
 
SLAQ said:
Still useless if you can reach your cap in an hour. Uncapped/100GB+ caps only news that should be note worthy, after that new speeds can be discussed. Honestly with current data plans what is the use of 42Mb/s? No proper developed website needs more than 1Mb/s. Only video streaming has higher requirements and large downloads (Wireless automatically not applicable due to price).
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I think you might be missing the point. 100Mbps per cell with 20 user on it would allow an average (estimate) of about 5Mbps where-as the same with 43Mbps would equal around 2Mbps.

But yes, latency is definitely a big issue but that is the other area where LTE is supposedly much better than HSPA. Something like 10ms vs 50ms.
 
jdkh said:
On the orders of magnitude thing:
Maximum speed of 3G (non-hsdpa): 384kb/s
Maximum speed of 2G (EDGE): 473.6 kb/s
Result does not compute ;)
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EDGE speed of 473.6Kbps is a theoretical speed based on resources in the system, 8 timeslots x 59.2Kbps per timeslot = 473.6Kbps. But the part you completely missed that no handset on the market support this, and very little (if any) vendors. The best class of handsets, class 30-34, support maximum of 5 downlink timeslots, equalling 296 Kbps with the best possible reception. And most devices is only class 12 which support 4 downlink timeslots for EDGE equalling 236.8 Kbps.

For 3G I don't recall the numbers and will take your statement as true in that regard. But you will be comparing the initial 3G roll-out in 2001 to EDGE which was first rolled out in 2003, and at that point the available classes was probably also much lower (and with much lower peak data rates).
 
jmak said:
EDGE speed of 473.6Kbps is a theoretical speed based on resources in the system, 8 timeslots x 59.2Kbps per timeslot = 473.6Kbps. But the part you completely missed that no handset on the market support this, and very little (if any) vendors. The best class of handsets, class 30-34, support maximum of 5 downlink timeslots, equalling 296 Kbps with the best possible reception. And most devices is only class 12 which support 4 downlink timeslots for EDGE equalling 236.8 Kbps.

For 3G I don't recall the numbers and will take your statement as true in that regard. But you will be comparing the initial 3G roll-out in 2001 to EDGE which was first rolled out in 2003, and at that point the available classes was probably also much lower (and with much lower peak data rates).
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You guys are forgetting VAMOS and EDGE evolution, 1mbps DL
 
SteveO said:
You guys are forgetting VAMOS and EDGE evolution, 1mbps DL
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Didn't forget E-EDGE, I was just not aware of any active deployments, or any handsets which support it. But I did forget about VAMOS, you are right :)
 
Why try to brand it as 4G when you can just leave it at LTE?!

This way there will be no confusion with HSDPA, WiMax, GPRS, Edge, etc.
 
jmak said:
EDGE speed of 473.6Kbps is a theoretical speed based on resources in the system, 8 timeslots x 59.2Kbps per timeslot = 473.6Kbps. But the part you completely missed that no handset on the market support this, and very little (if any) vendors. The best class of handsets, class 30-34, support maximum of 5 downlink timeslots, equalling 296 Kbps with the best possible reception. And most devices is only class 12 which support 4 downlink timeslots for EDGE equalling 236.8 Kbps.

For 3G I don't recall the numbers and will take your statement as true in that regard. But you will be comparing the initial 3G roll-out in 2001 to EDGE which was first rolled out in 2003, and at that point the available classes was probably also much lower (and with much lower peak data rates).
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Everything is theoretical. The point here is that the whole "must be an order of magnitude better" requirement is not met by (basic) 3G. Even comparing EDGE at 236.8kb/s 3G fails here and is being overtaken by other 2G or 2.5G technologies.

What most are missing here is that this is all an arbitrary classification that doesn't really make sense and it's probably for that reason that the ITU actually only defines the technology and has traditionally left the generations to the marketing people, but now they think they should have a say in what is 4G. If that is so they should release a document specifically defining 4G and what technologies they consider to be 4G and not personal opinions that change every time, but I don't think they will do that.

I agree with others here that there should rather be a focus on technologies and not 3G or 4G. Another thing is that if it's defined as 100Mb/s to 1Gb/s there's no way our networks will be able to handle this and only one of them meets the all-IP requirement.
 
This is all pointless. There are no clear milestones as to when the next bump up occurs - it seems to be defined by what somebody says it is. For example why is the difference between 2G and 3G so much smaller than the difference between 3G and 4G (whatever it's decided to be). Just define it based on the type of technology and leave LTE as it is - GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA etc. have worked perfectly fine. All this 'G' nonsense needs to be dropped.
 
No.
You can't call something 4G if it's not 4G.
LTE standard is 3.9G and LTE advanced is 4G.

Current LTE and WiMAX implementations are considered pre-4G, as they don't fully comply with the planned requirements of 1 Gbit/s for stationary reception and 100 Mbit/s for mobile.

Confusion has been caused by some mobile carriers who have launched products advertised as 4G but which are actually current technologies, commonly referred to as '3.9G', which do not follow the ITU-R defined principles for 4G standards. A common argument for branding 3.9G systems as new-generation is that they use different frequency bands to 3G technologies; that they are based on a new radio-interface paradigm; and that the standards are not backwards compatible with 3G, whilst some of the standards are expected to be forwards compatible with "real" 4G technologies.
 
Oh so now it's 3.9G :confused:
Just show nobody has a cookin' clue what's 3G and what's 4G. :whistle:
 
jdkh said:
Oh so now it's 3.9G :confused:
Just show nobody has a cookin' clue what's 3G and what's 4G. :whistle:
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Actually LTE was always known as 3.9G, just as HSPA+ is well known as 3.75G. For a number of years already.

Just show those who don't bother to read up have no cookin' clue. But do feel entitled to have an opinion. :rolleyes:
 
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