2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks

[Aquadementia]

@Learjeff

Not only are they different frequencies, but they’re different protocols – they’re very different in terms of how they work. 2G and 3G were specific technologies. 4G just means “better than 3G” and there are at least 4 different technologies with different advantages and disadvantages. 5G, when it comes, will be even more confusing, I bet.

I work for a large network equipment vendor. A few years ago, the head network designer for one of the major service providers was telling us about his vision for the future. He wanted someone to be able to watch HD video on a phone, starting say in a bar on its wifi, then walk outside and lose the wifi but and pick up the mobile network, without dropping video frames. That was just one example. He said that before long we’d be getting more bandwidth on our mobile devices than we did then on our wired networks. When challenged about what applications would need such bandwidth, he said, “Oh, don’t worry about that. If you give everyone the bandwidth, people will come up with great ways to use it!”

The thing is even though the 4G speeds are so much faster then 3G I don’t see how they are really much more useful.
Unless there is something I’m not getting about it, the pricing plans are barely any better as far as GB/month goes.
What about this am I missing?
It seems like the best thing that extra speed does is get you over the limit faster.

And it’s not that I’m trying to be a data hog. If the internet was all plain text I wouldn’t be reading more then a few MB per month. But websites expect everyone to be on broadband so they have become obese in extra code, scripts, images and flash. And then they want you to put everything on the cloud so you can download the same things repeatedly.

There are some things that are impractical on 3G, like video chatting, but 4G is hamstrung if you’re still watching how many MB it uses. Volume hasn’t kept up with speed as far as I can see.