AT&T complains about T-Mobile USA using the term “4G” 
According to FierceWireless AT&T is complaining about the press release from T-Mobile about their HPSA+ network. According to the article AT&T’s spokesman Seth Bloom stated “ I think companies need to be careful that they’re not misleading customers by labeling HSPA+ as a 4G technology,” The statement was in response to T-Mobile USA’s press release about the companies HSPA+ network being labeled as 4G. Now AT&T is planning on bringing their HSPA+ network to 250 million people by the end of this year. AT&T is not going to label their HSPA+ network as a 4G technology. Although when AT&T builds out their LTE network the company will call it 4G.
According to International Telecommunications Union 4G is defined as referring to IMT Advance (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced), which is a cellular system that is capable of reaching data rates of up to exactly 100Mbit/s for high mobility such as mobile access & up to exactly 1Gbit/s for low mobility for local wireless access. So since T-Mobile HSPA+ network only theoretically reaches 21 Mbps so it shouldn’t be labeled as 4G. Since AT&T & Verizon are both going to be using LTE for their networks they shouldn’t call theirs 4G either since it doesn’t comply with IMT Advanced standards. Sprint, which use WiMax also can’t label their technology as 4G, since their network offers data rates of 128 Mbps downlink & 56 Mbps uplink. I don’t think T-Mobile USA, AT&T, Sprint or Verizon should be using the term 4G.The cellular companies should be using the term 3.9G since all the networks are using 3.9G technology. I guess it’s much easier to market the networks by using the term 4G, then call it by it’s real definition
Source: Fierce Wirelesss
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