

The iPhone 4S, HSPA+, and When HSPA+ is Real 4G - Maci
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4943/the-iphone-4s-hspa-when-hspa-is-real-4g

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mdasen
I think the issue was that Sprint started marketing their WiMAX service as 4G.
In real-world testing, Sprint's WiMAX service has consistently scored around
the same as AT&T and T-Mobile's networks
([http://www.pcworld.com/article/221931/4g_wireless_speed_test...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/221931/4g_wireless_speed_tests_which_is_really_the_fastest.html),
<http://www.pcmag.com/Fastest-Mobile-Networks-2011>). Once Sprint had
announced that it had 4G and everyone saw that "4G" meant 2-3Mbps, it was hard
for AT&T and T-Mobile to avoid calling their HSPA+ networks "4G" as well.
After all, they were providing equivalent speeds to Sprint's "4G" network.

The real issue is that there wasn't a good way to label networks that were
2-4x better than their predecessor. EV-DO Rev A achieves around 1Mbps in the
real world. As companies (Sprint, really) started rolling out faster wireless
technologies, they wanted a way to differentiate them. They were better. If
you were a Sprint user with a WiMAX device, you're likely getting 2-3x faster
speeds. That's a significant improvement and, frankly, Sprint needed a way to
communicate that to users. Of course, that set the bar decently low for 4G - a
height that HSPA+ easily surpassed.

It would have been good if it had been called 3.5G or 3.75G, but once Sprint
had announced it's 2-3Mbps service as "4G", it meant everyone offering 2-3Mbps
service had to call it that. Granted, I think Sprint thought its service was
going to provide faster speeds than that - as noted by their 3-6Mbps figure.
However, that never panned out in real-world testing. It's reasonable to think
that LTE's speeds are going to be reduced as the customer load increases
(right now, AT&T and Verizon's LTE networks are virtually empty). So, if WiMAX
had been able to deliver 3-6Mbps and LTE speeds went down to the 6Mbps range
under load, it might not have seemed so off.

What we really need is to get away from the "G"s and start concentrating on
average real-world speed under load. What are people going to call "4G"
technologies like LTE Advanced (the next generation of LTE)? It's going to
offer vast improvements over the LTE that AT&T and Verizon are rolling out,
but officially it's supposed to just be 4G. The number of "G"s doesn't matter.
Ping times and bandwidth matter.

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pilif
Considering that in most parts of the world you don't even get 5GB "unlimited"
traffic, considering that real world bandwidth is still ways away from
14Mbit/s and finally considering that even with high bandwidth, latency still
is really, really bad, I don't understand this discussion at all.

Even if you somehow reached those 14M consistently, latency would still make
sure that surfing felt much slower than over landlines. And the very low data
transfer limits will make sure that stuff not as dependent on latency (like
video with big buffers) still won't be practical.

For me, the mobile web got kinda usable with 3G phones and since then, I've
never seen any practical improvement.

So at least here in Switzerland, this discussion is pointless and it's
different features that will make people want (or not - we'll see) to upgrade
their phones

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Terretta
Nice graph: Motorola Atrix 4G, LG Thrill 4G, HTC Inspire 4G, iPhone 4S, all
with theoretical 14.4 Mbps down, 5.8 Mbps up. Only one of these products
doesn't have 4G in the name.

~~~
joebadmo
Doesn't stop them from making sure you know that the 4S is just as fast all
these "4G" phones (stopping short of comparing to real 4G phones, of course).

[https://plus.google.com/109995794392976695103/posts/PdBbSct8...](https://plus.google.com/109995794392976695103/posts/PdBbSct8ZGs)

~~~
ugh
Other manufacturers have only themselves to blame for that.

~~~
joebadmo
I would be surprised if it wasn't the carriers that started that particular
obfuscation.

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runjake
I've tested a variety of HSPA+ devices on AT&T's networked and never even
approached the HSPA theoretical max of 14.4Mbps, let alone HSPA+'s max. More
commonly, I'd see speeds of 1-4Mbps down. Never any more than 4.

~~~
tpurves
In Canada it's not hard to get 10-13mbps down speeds with HSPA+ devices, But
that is with a 21MBit device (USB broadband stick). All the carriers in Canada
are now 21.6MB HSPA+ and converting to 44MB HSPA and 75MBIT LTE. What G would
you call that?

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coob
Does anyone know if o2 in the UK support the higher speeds? Google's giving me
nothing.

~~~
dan1234
Well, the bottom of this press release ([http://mediacentre.o2.co.uk/Press-
Releases/O2-first-to-switc...](http://mediacentre.o2.co.uk/Press-
Releases/O2-first-to-switch-on-new-superfast-3G-900MHz-network-2f8.aspx)) has
the following claim:

"O2’s UK 3G (HSPA+ 900 / 2100 MHz) network currently provides voice and high
speed data services of up to 14.4Mbps (21Mbps in the coming months) to over
84% of the UK population"

