Blazing fast speeds. Download in seconds. Watch live TV buffer free. We’ve heard a number of these claims from different carriers and for good reason. People want faster speeds and to be able to get things done really fast. But do they really? Many people, 47% to be exact, said they don’t feel they need access to a 4G LTE network and 26% said they thought most 4G LTE networks were all the same.
Very interesting when you consider just how many Billions of dollars and time has went into building up these networks. Sprint for example is completely dropping WiMax and already has 4G LTE live in some cities. This survey actually came about because Sprint wanted to see if their smaller 4G LTE coverage would affect them being able to sell enough of the iPhone 5 which will be announced next month.
You see, and this is just a theory, but a very large percentage of consumers could care less about this 4G mumbo jumbo, long as they can get done what they need to get done on their smartphones, tablets, even laptops, in an acceptable time. If it’s only 3G? Fine. Faster is better, but it’s not absolutely necessary, especially with what we’ve seen from this survey.
I live in an area that doesn’t have 4G LTE coverage and instead 3G, but it works great. I can do what I need to do and never experience any speed issues. All in all, 4G LTE is just marketing. It’s to try and drill into people’s heads that XYZ carrier has “a blazing fast network” or whatever buzz words they want to use.