--- title: Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G? | TIME description: Doug Aamoth answers questions about 4G wireless and clarifies whether the AT&T iPhone 4S qualifies as a 4G phone. canonical: https://time.com/video/Xoi6KpHT/ og:title: Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G? og:description: Doug Aamoth answers questions about 4G wireless and clarifies whether the AT&T iPhone 4S qualifies as a 4G phone. og:url: https://time.com/video/Xoi6KpHT/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Xoi6KpHT/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G? twitter:description: Doug Aamoth answers questions about 4G wireless and clarifies whether the AT&T iPhone 4S qualifies as a 4G phone. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Xoi6KpHT/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G? [Watch (HLS stream): Ask Techland: What's the Deal with 4G?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Xoi6KpHT.m3u8) (3:29)  _Published 2011-11-09. Doug Aamoth answers questions about 4G wireless and clarifies whether the AT&T iPhone 4S qualifies as a 4G phone._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:19 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [On the Fence? Talk Yourself into Getting the iPhone 4S](/video/Kavx4bhT/) ### On the Fence? Talk Yourself into Getting the iPhone 4S [Does AT&T's First 4G Phone Truly Inspire?](/video/pWAAPooJ/) ### Does AT&T's First 4G Phone Truly Inspire? [Techland's Top Five: Camera iPhone Apps, Alice and More](/video/JScW4xpt/) ### Techland's Top Five: Camera iPhone Apps, Alice and More --- ## Transcript So your. Your startup is gonna to sell subscriptions to pants, on the Internet? Like recurring pants? [ MUSIC ] It has begun. The Ask Techland question for this week. What's the deal with 4G? It's different from each company, right? My friend said the new IPhone is 4G on AT & T but not on Verizon, is that true? The short answer, in order, to all those questions. It's complicated, yes and sort of. So thanks for the question. See you next week. I'm gonna have to actually explain this aren't I. Okay lets go over the 4G basics. For starters, 4G doesn't make your phone perform any faster, so ads you see about 4G speed simply refer to the speed of the phone's internet connection. So 4G phones are good for streaming video, netflix, and really good for sharing the phones internet connection with your laptop. Aside from that though, most websites you pull up on your mobile phone have mobile optimized versions anyway, which doesn't make a 4G phone as advantageous. As far as the current technology goes, you have 3G phones on all carriers. And then for 4G, you have WiMax phones on Sprint, HSPI plus on AT and T mobile, and LTE phones on Verizon, and most recently, AT and T. For a speed comparison, if you have basic home and cable internet service from Comcast or Time Warner your maximum connection speed is likely around 15 megabits per second or mbps. We'll hereby refer to megabits per second as mbots. That speed is fast enough under perfect conditions to download a standard length, standard quality song like Mm- Bop in about two seconds or so. Now on the wireless side, Sprint promises an average, not maximum, WiMax speed of three to six MBox. T- Mobile promises an average HSPA plus speed of around eight MBox. And Verizon promises an average LTE speed of around five to twelve MBox. AT & T doesn't give actual numbers, but lets assume its HSPA plus and LTE numbers are similar to T- Mobile and Verizon, respectively. I can tell you from personal experience that I've used WiMax phones that have cleared 10mbps and HSPA + and LTE phones that have each cleared 20mbps. And LTE is fast becoming the 4G standard here in the U. S. so get an LTE phone if you want to future proof yourself. All that aside, the world standard for 4G is an average rate of 100mbps, so the term 4G here in the U. S. is merely a marketing term to describe our fourth generation networks, 4G. So is the AT and T iPhone 4S a 4G phone? Yes, in the sense that AT and T calls it one. It has an HSPI plus connection, and HSPI plus is faster than 3G. And the Verizon and Sprint versions use 3G. But is it a true 4G phone? No, since none of those actually exist here. I feel okay. I mean, I feel okay. I'm a little tired, but You know, this 4G's complicated, we knew this day would come where it would have to be explained somehow and I'm just glad it's over. Yeah I mean there's stuff I would have done differently sure. I wish I could have condensed it into two minutes like these videos normally are, but it's just, it's too complicated, there's too much stuff to. To print it in two minutes would have been a disservice to the readers. But yeah, I'll probably, you know, I have a meeting with my bosses after this. I'll probably take some heat for it but someone's got to do it. I got to, you know, something's got to bend. no. Mary, actually Mary [ INAUDIBLE ] maybe a little curious but. 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