The term "HTML5" is not nearly as vague. It's less exclusive than some purists would prefer (because it's used as a general term for corresponding changes to markup, CSS, the recommended parsing algorithm and the DOM), but it's not like "HTML5" could suddenly refer to Flash tomorrow.
I'd rather AT&T actually create a better network than spend time on marketing nonsense that simulates the creation of a better network. They may as well have a zero-G network if you live in a half-populated area.
Whose target customer are we? It seems that nobody is targeting people who want a dumb, fat, wireless pipe with an unlocked smartphone and no marketing BS.
Their network still sucks? AT&T gets to slap on a new marketing buzzword, pretend it's better, sucker more customers into thinking it's better, and make more money while still giving everyone a crappy service.
They did actually upgrade to HSPA+, it's not like they're deceiving anybody about that. Their claims of the "fastest" network have generally been true too. The fact that their coverage and reliability suck doesn't mean they can't play up their strong points.
This is the result of a series of steps that each seemed somewhat reasonable — like a marketing version of path dependence (or maybe ratcheting). Clearwire called WiMax 4G because it's an incompatible, more advanced, and dramatically faster protocol than EV-DO or WCDMA. Then T-Mobile introduced HSPA+ which is technically an incremental evolution of 3G but is actually faster than WiMax; thinking that it's unfair for a faster network to have fewer Gs, they called it 4G. Now AT&T will be penalized if they call their HSPA+ 3G, so they also call it 4G.
Honestly, the traditional G naming scheme was too arbitrary and confused users.
It's also worth noting that the ITU (closest thing to an authority on this) announced that "4G" has no technical meaning and therefore might as well apply to T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. I'm sure AT&T was pissed.
(Only LTE and WiMAX can use the ITU label "IMT-Advanced" but that term is lacking a certain bit of marketing cachet)
In a persuasive setting words are currency. Gresham's Law (bad currency drives out good) applies. Since the words in question are actually numbers we get slapped in the face with it this time. Or we get a chuckle, depending on your prior level of cynicism.
In other words, they're upset that AT&T's vacant marketing hype posing as a genuine technical specification is diminishing the value of their own (and better established!) marketing hype posing as a genuine technical specification.
In 3G (or 4G, whatever) the speeds are dependent on a lot of things you can't really control: amount of users, location, the 3g device, weather, etc etc. So you can never really promise "with us you'll get at least x megabytes per second!". On the other hand, you could advertise the "maximum speed", which is also meaningless since nobody ever gets that.
ATT isn't saying that your iPhone is 4G. Your iPhone supports HSPA 7.2. ATT's network is HSPA+ but they don't have any HSPA+ phones yet. HSPA+ is what ATT and T-mobile are calling 4G.
I can see highlighting AT&T's change in marketing and seemingly trying to confuse customers by dropping mention of 3G. However, I don't see any evidence here that AT&T is starting to use the term "4G" incorrectly. The article papers over this inconvenient lack of perfidy on AT&T's part by using the term 4G on average once per paragraph.
I believe the point of the article was to bait people into reading WSJ. The title of the article is "AT&T Pins 4G Label to Existing Network", but that statement is not supported by fact and the claim is not even made in the article. Instead, the writer uses a lot of sound and fury to obscure the fact that ... well AT&T is being more vague about the technology used in their network. Oh no, marketing. It may mean that people who are uninformed will buy products they otherwise might not have, and this is the first time such a thing has ever happened.
If AT&T had actually called their non-LTE network "4G" that would be one thing. But they aren't. This article is below the standards of techcrunch, let alone WSJ.com. Wireless carriers pull enough BS on their own there's no need to go making things up.
Lying isn't right, so I tell my children. I am sure consumers don't really understand the technology, but clearly stating something you don't have is material the FTC should be investigating.
He says consumers generally won't notice the difference in speed between AT&T's HSPA-plus and upcoming LTE networks, so it makes sense to call both 4G ...the carrier will speed up the LTE network build out in 2012 and 2013.
basically, they got the ceo of ATT wireless to say on-record that there would be no speed improvements on their network for a very long time... They probably won't have good (geographic) coverage on the new network for at least 2-3 years...
Can anyone comment on why they are just starting to build a network with tech that isn't higher speed than their current network? I'm sure that's a lot of money spent, and you'd think that if they went to the trouble they'd deploy something that was faster.
From what I've read, LTE will certainly be faster than HSPA+. I think what he is saying is that HSPA+ is "fast enough" for most smartphone activities (such as web browsing), so the speed boost provided by LTE will only be noticed in more data-intensive applications, such as video streaming.
The fastest implementations of HSPA-plus are actually coming close to the theoretical limits of how much data can be transferred on a given frequency band, but they have some big drawbacks compared to LTE.
The one that will be most noticeable at first is latency, which is at most half that of HSPA (the requirement is 20ms for LTE). The second is that LTE will be able to use bigger frequency bands than HSPA, eventually reaching a 100 MHz band.
Even ignoring that, AT&T's current HSPA-plus network is nowhere near as fast as HSPA-plus can be. They would need to upgrade it to get close to the raw speed of LTE.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadhttp://boingboing.net/2005/09/14/gillettes-5blade-raz.html
I, I mean... I...
I can muster nothing but expletives. Wow. Absolutely nothing more than expletives.
Fuck these guys.
there's no profit in selling to smart people. Much easier to sell to the suckers.
Coming soon: LTE aka 5G.
Honestly, the traditional G naming scheme was too arbitrary and confused users.
(Only LTE and WiMAX can use the ITU label "IMT-Advanced" but that term is lacking a certain bit of marketing cachet)
http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.as...
Which meant neither Sprint's or Verizon's network were 4G, but that didn't stop them from advertising.
In December, the ITU changed their mind and now WiMax, LTE, and HSPA+ can be called 4G: http://www.intomobile.com/2010/12/18/itu-reverses-its-decisi...
At this point, I think 4G is just mostly a marketing phrase now.
How...frustrating.
I can see highlighting AT&T's change in marketing and seemingly trying to confuse customers by dropping mention of 3G. However, I don't see any evidence here that AT&T is starting to use the term "4G" incorrectly. The article papers over this inconvenient lack of perfidy on AT&T's part by using the term 4G on average once per paragraph.
Is this the WSJ or is it techcrunch?
I believe the point of the article was that the term "4G" is currently meaningless, not that it is being used incorrectly.
So we're being sold service that's allegedly next generation, even though nobody actually can agree on what 4G actually is.
If AT&T had actually called their non-LTE network "4G" that would be one thing. But they aren't. This article is below the standards of techcrunch, let alone WSJ.com. Wireless carriers pull enough BS on their own there's no need to go making things up.
basically, they got the ceo of ATT wireless to say on-record that there would be no speed improvements on their network for a very long time... They probably won't have good (geographic) coverage on the new network for at least 2-3 years...
Can anyone comment on why they are just starting to build a network with tech that isn't higher speed than their current network? I'm sure that's a lot of money spent, and you'd think that if they went to the trouble they'd deploy something that was faster.
The one that will be most noticeable at first is latency, which is at most half that of HSPA (the requirement is 20ms for LTE). The second is that LTE will be able to use bigger frequency bands than HSPA, eventually reaching a 100 MHz band.
Even ignoring that, AT&T's current HSPA-plus network is nowhere near as fast as HSPA-plus can be. They would need to upgrade it to get close to the raw speed of LTE.