Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

Honest question here: what does anyone need 4g for?

On HSPA+ (H+) my connection is fast enough for any purpose besides downloading movies, and it's not like I've got unlimited data. Even 3g's theoretical speed is great if they could get that to work for a change.

I have 4g on a company laptop and the speed is better than many places' WiFi, but I have yet to find an excuse to use it (someone has to pay that data bill). It's not like I don't know how fast it really is, I just don't see the point of it right now. In 5 years 3g really will be too slow for many applications, but as it stands...

View on HN

It's not about you. It's about having multiple users within the same band. In crowded places you might have full 3G signal and the internet will still be shit because of how many people are using it. With 4G it should be better, it's not all about top speeds.

> In 5 years 3g really will be too slow for many applications

You answered your own question. It's progress, and the sooner people around the world adopt 4G, the sooner it becomes the standard, just like 3G before it.

> You answered your own question.

But in 5 years, in all reasonableness, you'd have a new phone. Having no lte on this one doesn't change much. That's what I meant to say.

You're right, and my Nexus 4 and Lumia 521 are getting along just fine without LTE as well, and will continue to for the next 1-2 years I hope to get out of them. It will be at least another 10-15 years before 3G is turned off in favor of whatever the baseline is then (hell, we still have 2G which by all accounts should be dead by now).

4G has much better latency than HSPA+ for me. Video streaming is much smoother and breaks up less. FaceTime is much better than on HSPA+. If I see 4G in my status bar, I know my connection is going to be at least as good as coffee shop WiFi.

It contends better too, which affects everyone.

I have unlimited LTE for £15/mo (Three UK) so I don't need to worry about paying for the data.

You have unlimited until they decide you're using too much.

Not true, I've pushed over 2TB (as in, 2000GB) in one month over 3G/4G and they haven't complained.

Coverage is a problem in some areas. In many parts of australia the 3g coverage has been left pretty damn miserable. while they have invested in 4g.

additionally contention levels are just horrible on the 3g services. what's that 20 Kb/s and 40% packet loss just because you were silly enough to use it near a train station.

In my city the 3G is incredibly slow. I need 4G to be able to stream music.

With Free mobile in France you get Up to 3gb of 4G fair use for free. so if it's enough for you then you won't increase your phone Bill

Reply on news.ycombinator.com