If you’ve owned a cell phone, tablet, or home streaming service in the last few years, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of either “4G” or “LTE”. To the uninitiated, these might sound like random collections of letters and numbers, designed to be as obscure as possible. But to anybody with an interest in streamlined communications, the “LTE vs 4G” debate carries a lot of weight if you want to get the best service.
Join us today, as we break down what each of these services is, what it means, and how much of a difference they’re likely to make in your life.
What Does 4G Mean?
4G connectivity standards came into operation in March 2008. This is a set of mobile speed and connectivity standards laid out by the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R). All services using this standard have to meet specific minimum speed and connectivity goals, including:
- Peak speeds of 100Mbit/s, where the devices are mobile, such as in a car or on a train
- Peak speeds of 1Gbit/s, where devices are minimally mobile, such as with pedestrians or even stationary devices
What’s important to note when it comes to these speed standards, though, is that they are hard to enforce. The ITF-R isn’t a regulatory body. It can’t enforce specific rules on any business promoting “4G” services or devices without providing them. This has led to many countries experiencing “4G” speeds that are actually far slower than what this standard actually requires.
What Does LTE Mean?
LTE, or Long-term Evolution, is actually an offshoot of 4G technology, which is why it’s also sometimes known as “4G LTE”. And, now that we’ve answered the question “What does LTE stand for?” two different ways, the real question: what does it do?
What LTE amounts to is, essentially, a halfway point between 4G and the much-slower 3G that preceded it. 3G networks provided connectivity that improved on the extremely basic 2G standard before them. Whereas 2G allowed messaging, calls, and minor data transfers via MMS, 3G allowed basic webpages, streaming videos and music.
But it was still basic, with slower load times and much less capable over the slower connection standard. It wasn’t until 4G that we began to experience smartphone connectivity as we know it today. And 4G LTE marks the midway point between these two standards.
If you see the ‘4G’ symbol on your phone’s data bar, keep in mind that you might be getting 4G LTE speeds, which are slower. The ITU-R set a minimum speed for 4G, but a lot of technology couldn’t be built to meet it, and this is still an issue. Because of this, many developers decided to offer improvements over 3G speeds, making them technically 4G LTE, and simply annotate it as 4G.
Can You Tell the Difference Between 4G and LTE?
With all of this talk about the differences in speed between 4G and LTE, one question seems very important: how will it affect you in the day-to-day? For the most part, download speeds will be comparable, but in a pure sense, 4G is definitely the faster of the two.
So long as your device can handle the connection standard and access to a service provider that actually provides it, this is the better option. And, of course, when you’re using data networks like Mobile Command Centers, you have even more options for where, when, and how you communicate.
And does LTE use more data than 4G? Because it tends to be slower, LTE usually users download less, not streaming videos and generally conserving a little more. On average, LTE users tend to use less data than 4G.
LTE vs 4G
As technology continues to improve, the need for faster, more streamlined tech increases as well. Depending on where you live, your device, and the capabilities of your service provider, you could be getting that pure 4G joy from your speeds. If not, there’s a good chance you’re getting 4G LTE. Whatever the case, what’s important is to get a connection that allows you to work, play, and live your life online the way you want.
Looking for more great content to help make your business or home Internet life easier? From “LTE vs 4G” to so many others, check out some of our other blog posts, today!
