Well, it looks like it is all starting to happen.
We had GSM phones (2G) for quite a while and then, when everyone was comfortable with that (market saturation), we moved to 3G phones. Despite my comment about the market state at the time, there were also very good technical reasons to move to 3G and so we find ourselves in a mainly 3G world today.
With most new things there is a “catch 22”. Manufacturers need a big enough market for it to be worth their while, yet the public needs to see enough manufacturers for the public to become a market. You can come up with the technology; but – no matter how good it is – if no-one buys it, you go broke.
What I am finding interesting is that the 4G technical war seems to have settled and we have reached the standardisation stage. This lowers the risk for manufacturers and the consumer market is beginning.
4G is technically very nice. It is a more consistent solution for an internet age. We lose legacy “connection-based” communication paths and move to Internet Protocol for the whole system. Yes, these are phones and no, you can’t talk or listen any faster. However, most people use their phones for much more than voice these days. Modern phones do a lot of web surfing. This can be looking stuff up, calling up a map or a street view, updating your facebook status, or tweeting your thoughts. 4G looks at all communication, even voice, as data and transfers that data the same way. The wikipedia article is 4G
4G offers better data speeds and this means streaming movies, video conferencing, and office work from your phone. Okay, phones are small and tablets are the rage, but tablets connect to phone networks too. And doing office work on a tablet whilst enjoying the sunshine on at the lake shore will appeal to many.
So is anyone making 4G phones? Does anyone have a 4G network? The answer is, “yes” to both. They are starting to appear:
An Android 4G phone from Verizon
Samsung 4G phone for Sprint
Microsoft 4G phones coming
4G Tablets for T-Mobile
Sure, this is in the US and they are often different to the rest of us, but 4G is starting to pop up elsewhere too:
Australian Telstra 4G network
