

"3G" is a crock. Here's why. (Also, it kicked my puppy.) - keithwinstein
http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/08/3g-and-me/

======
proee
4G on my new Sprint HTC EVO is a joke. It sucks down on the battery like a
thirsty yak and it has terrible indoor reception. Not to mention it doesn't
seem noticeably faster than 3G.

So I use the 3G radio 99.9% of the time and the 4G radio sits there idle
because someone in Sprint's marketing team though it would give them an edge
in marketing the device.

I'd put money on the table and say that if Dan Hesse himself carries around an
HTC EVO he has the 4G turned OFF.

"How's that for a wireless revolution... Pretty awesome huh?"

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mattmichielsen
This G thing has been getting out of hand for quite a while now. A friend was
recently telling me how much better his new phone was because it is 4G. He
said he didn't really know what that meant, but it was definitely faster than
3G.

Also, a coworker of mine refers to his company provided Nextel Blackberry as
"half-G".

~~~
rbranson
It's just a marketing term for marketing to people who don't care about link
protocols or multiplexing strategies. The problem was originally started when
1xRTT and EDGE were branded as 3G. This should have never happened, but that's
what happens when marketing drives your business instead of engineering.

Honestly, even EVDO isn't really a true 3G protocol, as voice and data are
completely separate protocols. UMTS phones don't drop to a voice-only
technology to make a call, they use the data signaling, and IP connectivity
isn't lost during phone calls. However, the fact that CDMA folks decided to go
with a less ambitious, but easier to deploy megabit+ broadband technology
meant they were able to beat the GSM networks to the punch. Worse is better.

That being said, WiMAX and LTE are legitimate 4G technologies. They both step
up to using OFDMA instead of CDMA, which gives them a much higher theoretical
bandwidth ceiling. Yes, HSPA+ networks have been pushing into WiMAX's
bandwidth territory by adding MIMO and 64QAM modulation, but that's pretty
much the ceiling for HSPA. The only future it has is in multi-carrier or
multi-tower arrangements, which don't increase the spectral efficiency and are
pointless in dense urban areas.

~~~
rue
Technically WiMAX and LTE are _not_ 4G technologies. LTE-Advanced is to be.

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nanairo
There seems to be a few mistakes.

First, partially it sounds like a branding problem. It would be interesting to
know where/how it happens: is it just an American thing? At least in Europe
I've not really heard of anything of the sort. Sure they may rebrand 3G as
"High Speed" and 3.5G as "Super high speed" but that's about it. At least they
don't change a term they have already been using. I guess here we are also
"lucky" that the protocol is displayed much more prominently.

Second point I think the comparison with wirelines didn't convince me too
much: 3G/4G/whatever are more like DSL/ISDN/Cable. They can't simply advertise
the bandwidth, because you actually need to have the right piece of hardware.
Imagine if they sold you a "1MB/sec" connection but it didn't work: "Oh, I am
sorry dear customer, but you need to have a UMTS phone for that". I'd be
really pissed at that point. :)

Edit: actually another such case is Flash format. You get SD, SDHC, SDXC, for
example. It's important they advertise that because that's what may decide if
you can read or not the card you just bought. Then sure, they also advertise
that the card is 8GB, 16GB or what have you, but you can't remove the
information on the protocol.

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jasonkester
The best wireless internet experience I ever had was from a sailboat in a
little bay in Colombia. There was a cell tower up on a hill, servicing a half
dozen houses and as many boats on the water. At any given time you could be
reasonably certain you had the whole thing to yourself.

I don't think you'll ever have it that good in New York City, nomatter how
fast your phone and how much money the carriers throw into infrastructure.

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TGJ
It took a while but the guy makes a great point towards the end. Cell phone
companies have sold an idea of the service that you will get but never give
you the specifics of how it will be. For instance the new 4G network is
coming. We know it's fast or should be but have they given a list of the
speeds that you will expect while using this new 4G service or simply the idea
that it will be fast so use it?

~~~
pedalpete
I think they aren't marketing the details like you expect because to most
people it doesn't matter. Most people wouldn't know the difference if it had
1mg download or 1mbs or 10mbs (though they'll understand that the second is
faster).

This is the marketing difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple says 'it's
faster' and you believe them. Microsoft says 'it's 64bit and can run 192gb of
ram, which makes it blindingly fast.', but the second only means something to
a small percentage of customers, and the message that gets through is Apple's
'it's faster'.

~~~
TGJ
While you do have a good point, it's more than that. They don't market the
details so that they do not have to live up to them.

~~~
chc
Aren't you begging the question here?

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m_eiman
_Tell me you got a new phone where you pay to get 1 Mbps and 100 ms rtt to
major exchange points. When the market moves forward enough to make that a
reality, that’ll be a generation worth celebrating._

It's not quite 100 ms, but not too shabby:

    
    
       --- svt.se ping statistics ---
       21 packets transmitted, 21 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
       round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 86.396/133.311/257.719/44.787 ms
    

According to another test app I'm getting 1Mbps down and 130kbps up. Time to
celebrate my iPhone?

I think I was getting better speeds before switching to another operator, too.
(And the bandwidth test app seems to agree, it classified my result as merely
"acceptable" and not "good").

~~~
randallsquared
My RTT is similar here in Alexandria, VA on T-mobile. Of course, my N900
usually shows 3.5G instead of 3G. Having not paid much attention, it's not
clear to me what that means in real speed terms.

~~~
barake
That 3.5G is HSPA+ which has a max downstream of 21 megabit versus 3G (HSDPA)
at about 7 megabit down.

------
rue
Correction suggestion: "3G" _in the United States_ is a crock. So is "4G",
which as far as I understand is not actually even LTE/WiMax in some places
(which themselves are pre-4G).

.eu side, at least, things are a bit clearer.

