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While the definition of 3G is pretty much universally agreed upon and united under the umbrella of a standard, 4G is a meaningless term… and becomes even more meaningless by the second. Strictly speaking, the only thing that comes close to really being 4G are Sprint’s WiMax and Verizon’s LTE technologies. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ isn’t really 4G, but it’s still faster, at least, than stock 3G. AT&T’s so-called 4G, though, isn’t just a lie… it’s actually slower than their 3G.
PC Mag recently took two AT&T phones proclaiming themselves to be 4G handsets for a spin. They tested an HTC Inspire 4G, a Motorola Atrix and an Apple iPhone 4 against each other. You’d think that the Inspire 4G and the Motorola Atrix would be faster than the iPhone, since both use HSPA+ 14.4 modems compared to the iPhone 4’s HSPA 7.2 modem.
Guess what, though? In actual tests, the Inspire 4G and Atrix were actually significantly slower than the iPhone 4, even though their throughput capabilities were actually double the older handset’s.
What the heck’s going on? AT&T has already admitted to deliberately turning off HSUPA on the Atrix, capping its upload speeds to sub-iPhone-4 levels even as it pushes the device as a 4G phone, but it looks like they’re doing this on additional devices as well.
PC Mag contacted AT&T about their findings, but instead of promises for a fix, or even an explanation, AT&T instead have PC Mag the most evasive statement in history, simply saying: “As you noticed, we have a number of HSUPA devices today and we will have more HSUPA-enabled devices in the future—new devices and updates to existing models.”
Absolutely shameful. What a bunch of scumbags. At least Verizon is actually delivering 4G speeds, while AT&T’s just lying about it.
