Got a pretty good deal today

Hell Puppy · 03-04-2011

Good price point on the plan, and if you have coverage at the places you're at most commonly you'll likely be happy. And Evo's not a bad phone.

But if you wanna know where the gotcha is, there's a few things anyone shopping for 4G needs to know...

First off, as always, the international organizations who set standards for things move at the typical glacial pace of political entities. This means they don't finalize standards as fast as companies come out with new technology. And speed hungry consumers don't wait.

This is a time honored tradition going back at least to the days of modems. Even at lowly 9600 bps you had at least 3 competing proprietary methods of doing it 3 years before the "V.32" standard was approved by what was then known as CCITT.

So "4G" isn't a standard right now, it's a marketing term that has no specific technology or even speed requirement associated with it. As a marketing term it simply means to the wireless companies and their consumers that it is "faster than 3G".

This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but know what "4G" means to each of the big four and what to expect. At a high level, here's how I see 'em:

Sprint -- Sprint uses Clear's WIMAX for their 4G. This is actually the slowest of the 4G offerings out there in terms of phone to tower radio speeds. Your EVO is kind of unique in that it uses Sprint's CDMA network for voice, but kicks over to Clear for data. You'll find yourself having voice in places where you do not have data if you get outside the cities where Clear is. The fly in the ointment here is Clear is out of money, and Sprint isn't in a position to give them any more. So the data side isn't going to be expanding very quickly anytime soon. This is also a dead end technology, it's as fast as it will ever get.

Verizon -- Verizon's 4G is LTE. This would be the current state of the art, and currently is pushing up over 30Mbps. The catch? Only thing out right now that supports it is a laptop card. Phones are coming, BUT LTE is not backwards compatible. If you pay the big bucks f or Verizon, you likely want them because they are the only company that will spend the bucks to provide coverage in a corn field in the middle of Iowa. Their LTE network is currently big city coverage only. That's the only place these phones will work.

T-Mobile -- T-Mobile's 4G is based on HSPA+ technology extending GSM. Their claims of "largest" 4G network are accurate as it covers almost their entire footprint and is fully backwards compatible. Current speeds are 21Mbps with most POPs upgraded to 42Mbps by summer. In cities where this is already done, it's clocking faster than Verizon's LTE. T-Mobile was late to the game with 3G, but this actually means all new network gear and back haul. And the chick in the commercials is smoking hot. The catch? T-Mobile's network is using the old AWS spectrum, penetration in buildings in areas of weak coverage can by iffy. BUT, T-Mobile is also the only carrier supporting UMA, so this means if you buy a device that supports Wifi Calling (most of current android offerings) your phone can use your wifi signal for calling and texting as well as data.

AT&T -- AT&T's 4G is also HSPA+ on GSM. Same as T-Mobile? Nope, different frequency for one thing, so the two aren't directly compatible. But where speed is concerned, AT&T has a big catch. They can give you HSPA+ speeds (up to 21Mbps) via radio from phone to tower, but most of their back haul is still based on old school ma bell copper not fiber. Can you say bottleneck? Realistically expect no more speed from their 4G than you get from their 3G for that reason.

03-04-2011	#4
Hell Puppy Fat Fucking Nobody Want to see your own Advertising Here! Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 6,523	Re: Got a pretty good deal today Good price point on the plan, and if you have coverage at the places you're at most commonly you'll likely be happy. And Evo's not a bad phone. But if you wanna know where the gotcha is, there's a few things anyone shopping for 4G needs to know... First off, as always, the international organizations who set standards for things move at the typical glacial pace of political entities. This means they don't finalize standards as fast as companies come out with new technology. And speed hungry consumers don't wait. This is a time honored tradition going back at least to the days of modems. Even at lowly 9600 bps you had at least 3 competing proprietary methods of doing it 3 years before the "V.32" standard was approved by what was then known as CCITT. So "4G" isn't a standard right now, it's a marketing term that has no specific technology or even speed requirement associated with it. As a marketing term it simply means to the wireless companies and their consumers that it is "faster than 3G". This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but know what "4G" means to each of the big four and what to expect. At a high level, here's how I see 'em: Sprint -- Sprint uses Clear's WIMAX for their 4G. This is actually the slowest of the 4G offerings out there in terms of phone to tower radio speeds. Your EVO is kind of unique in that it uses Sprint's CDMA network for voice, but kicks over to Clear for data. You'll find yourself having voice in places where you do not have data if you get outside the cities where Clear is. The fly in the ointment here is Clear is out of money, and Sprint isn't in a position to give them any more. So the data side isn't going to be expanding very quickly anytime soon. This is also a dead end technology, it's as fast as it will ever get. Verizon -- Verizon's 4G is LTE. This would be the current state of the art, and currently is pushing up over 30Mbps. The catch? Only thing out right now that supports it is a laptop card. Phones are coming, BUT LTE is not backwards compatible. If you pay the big bucks f or Verizon, you likely want them because they are the only company that will spend the bucks to provide coverage in a corn field in the middle of Iowa. Their LTE network is currently big city coverage only. That's the only place these phones will work. T-Mobile -- T-Mobile's 4G is based on HSPA+ technology extending GSM. Their claims of "largest" 4G network are accurate as it covers almost their entire footprint and is fully backwards compatible. Current speeds are 21Mbps with most POPs upgraded to 42Mbps by summer. In cities where this is already done, it's clocking faster than Verizon's LTE. T-Mobile was late to the game with 3G, but this actually means all new network gear and back haul. And the chick in the commercials is smoking hot. The catch? T-Mobile's network is using the old AWS spectrum, penetration in buildings in areas of weak coverage can by iffy. BUT, T-Mobile is also the only carrier supporting UMA, so this means if you buy a device that supports Wifi Calling (most of current android offerings) your phone can use your wifi signal for calling and texting as well as data. AT&T -- AT&T's 4G is also HSPA+ on GSM. Same as T-Mobile? Nope, different frequency for one thing, so the two aren't directly compatible. But where speed is concerned, AT&T has a big catch. They can give you HSPA+ speeds (up to 21Mbps) via radio from phone to tower, but most of their back haul is still based on old school ma bell copper not fiber. Can you say bottleneck? Realistically expect no more speed from their 4G than you get from their 3G for that reason.