4G is in demand, but most consumers still don't understand it

It's been a while, but it's time for one of our favorite pastimes: evaluating data that has come from surveys. Some of you may know that we tend to be more skeptical, because statistics are extremely easy to spin or gather incorrectly. The newest round of stats is from an In-Stat report which looked at consumer feelings towards certain features and carriers.

In-Stat surveyed 1,208 consumers, which is a fair number, and found that 75% of respondents considered 4G to be an important feature, and one that would be in an "ideal phone". Although In-Stat analyst Greg Potter did point out that there is "a lot of confusion" about 4G. This is of course due to the conflicting marketing campaigns from all 4 of the major carriers in the US.

The US carriers have, for the sake of marketing, decided it best to ignore the original meaning of the term "4G", and simply use it as a blanket statement for any network that is faster than 3G, which was not just misleading, but was so misleading that it caused a redefinition of the term. The International Telecommunication Union originally set requirements for a 4G network, which stated that it must offer peak speeds of at minimum 100 Mbps and a maximum of 1 Gbps depending on certain conditions. Ultimately, the ITU got so tired of fighting the false marketing, that it just changed the definition to include these "evolved 3G" networks "for the benefit of the consumer". Of course, it actually causes more confusion, because it seems anything faster than 2 Mbps can be considered 4G, which leaves a wide range of performance that consumers must learn about for each carrier. 

source: BGR

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