AT&T is “working with Apple’ to change the indicator in the iPhone 4S (which tops out at 14.4Mbps, up from the iPhone 4′s 7.2Mbps) to show ‘4G’ in the status bar as well,” Chris Ziegler reports for This is my next.
“That’s surprising considering Apple’s general reluctance over the past four years to bow to carrier pressure on… well, pretty much anything — and what’s more, the indicator will require an iOS update to enable,” Ziegler reports. “AT&T confirms that the companies are indeed ‘working together’ on it, emphasizing that ‘customers will get 4G speeds from day one’ regardless.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Andrew W.” for the heads up.]
Can’t wait to get my 4S!
Since Verizon’s LTE provides “12-15 Mbps”, AT&T’s thoughts are correct.
Thats because neither is actually LTE. LTE means speeds of 100 mbps or higher. They’re both lying but at least they’re telling the same lie so I guess it doesn’t matter much.
At least the benefit here is that the iPhone gets those 14 mbps speeds using a 3G card instead of a 4G card so the battery doesn’t run dead in a few hours.
“They’re both lying but at least they’re telling the same lie so I guess it doesn’t matter much.”
They’re just following the example of our government and business leaders. The word “integrity” evidently has too many syllables to be in their database of guiding principles.
Not quite, as I understand it. 4G specified target rates of 100 Mbps to mobile endpoints and 1 Gbps to fixed/slow endpoints. LTE spans 3G and 4G, and is sometimes referred to as 3.9G. LTE-Advanced is 4G, and is what I’m waiting for to really change things (the end of last-mile wires?)
how can we tell if the (3g, hsap , or 4g, or whatever they call it) speed with att on iphone 4s will be faster than that on iphone 4? this is because the chip in iphone 4s is faster the one in iphone 4 making it impossible test the speed independently.
“AT&T confirms that the companies are indeed ‘working together’ on it, emphasizing that ‘customers will get 4G speeds from day one’ regardless.”
Maybe they should work on getting 3G speeds up to far first.
What world do they live in? must be in cow dunk nowhere with their own private cell towers… cause in major cities in the US- it’s not even close to 4G.
actually there were real world tests a while back when AT&T started rolling out the 4G/LTE/Whatever they call it, and it was faster than Verizon.
Where I live, Verizon is slower than AT&T’s 3G also. Had a Droid and my iPhone 4 on a table right next to each other doing the Speed test app from Speedtest.net
I was over 1MB faster than the Droid 2/X2 whatever that POS is called from Verizon.
From all the tests that are reported on, NYC/Chicago/LA/SF are the worst for AT&T, everywhere else… AT&T is faster. and a lot of the problems for ALL carriers putting up towers is local/state regulations.
i think so too – need two
4G is supposed to go to 100Mbps. 3G tops out at around 40Mbps.
AT&T has long way to go before it should be allowed to call their service 4G. Same goes for ALL operators in US who call their service 4G (T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon). None of them are anywhere near nominal 4G speeds.
Elsewhere in the world, they’ll all be successfully sued for false advertising.
Last December standard organization was that was
bribedpersuaded to officially give in to the marketing guys from Verizon and the others and lift 100 Mbps requirement for 4G.So false advertisement is already officially “true” advertisement this year.
And even though iPhone 4S provide no less or better than Verizon LTE speeds, I am glad Apple had some class and did not call it “iPhone 4G”, nor advertises it this way.
I’d be happy if they upgraded EDGE to 3G where I live. Verizon has 3G here, AT&T, no where. It sucks!
Verizon 3G is not much better than AT&T EDGE.
As someone who will be buying an iPhone 4s on the AT&T network, I would like to know when I was using AT&T’s faster 3G network, BUT I don’t want the iPhone to indicate 4G… How about 3G+ or 3+… Don’t distort Tech specs for Marketing purposes!
They should use HSPA
What do the other phones use? I’ve never seen one faster than 3G.
Kinda premature to use 4G… don’t you think?
Here in the UK it’s not unusual to see 3G indicated, but get an error message warning that the phone is not connected to the Internet, so no data at all. All those who imagine that all they need is an 8Gb iPhone 4S, and iCloud will handle everything are fucking deluded. My 32Gb iP4 is barely able to manage, a 64Gb iP4S is close, a 128Gb iP5 would be perfection. Google Maps? Don’t make me laugh, I just about manage with the 11Gb or so of CoPilot and Ordnance Survey maps stored in my phone.
I thought the 4G spec had been watered down to include HSPA+ which is what the 4S is using.
how can we tell if the (3g, hsap , or 4g, or whatever they call it) speed with att on iphone 4s will be faster than that on iphone 4? this is because the chip in iphone 4s is faster the one in iphone 4 making it impossible test the speed independently.
I don’t care if it’s called 3G or 4G, 14 Mbps over a mobile wireless link is D A M N impressive.
Yeah, remember when 14.4 Wifi was top of the line superfast? Now I can have that ON MY PHONE! Simply incredible.
LTE 4G is just not ready for prime time yet and Apple is smart to stay away from it. Verizon has not got one phone that works with it well. From the Thunderbolt sucking down battery power like crazy to it’s Droid Charge that won’t stay connected to a 4G signal and drops to 3G erratically. When Apple unveils it’s next iPhone 5 it will most likely be the right time. And then there will be some real coverage by all three of the carriers.
Now that I just preordered the 4S, I for once am happy to be with AT&T.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Verizon is “working with Apple” to block AT&T’s efforts to at the 4G.
I would be happy if there would be an option to turn on a display of actually attained speed. Because sometimes although I have 3G displayed, it is sluggish.
I’ll be happy when LTE Advanced hits the carriers. But don’t get me wrong LTE is insanely fast my buddy has a Thunderbolt only downfall is the battery.