Mobile, 4g | featured news

Faster speeds for the latest version of mobile technology are being made available in several UK cities. EE, owner of Orange and T-Mobile, says its fourth generation (4G) broadband speeds should double to more than 20Mbps.

The number of users with mobile devices is expected to climb to 5.2 billion in 2017 from 4.3 billion in 2012 and traffic across high-speed 4G networks will grow 40-fold during that time, according to a five-year forecast for mobile traffic data compiled by Cisco Systems and released today.

You want it. You want it desperately. You want it desperately, but you don't even know what it is. Such is consumer desire for 4G data connectivity in mobile handsets. Call it proof positive that the phone carriers' marketing efforts have paid off -- this despite slow 4G infrastructure roll-outs, and actual 4G data rates that fall far, far below the promise of the 4G spec.

The first two phones to run on AT&T's new high-speed data network will go on sale Sunday. The phones are the HTC Vivid and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. Both are big touchscreen smartphones that run Google Inc.'s Android software. They'll cost $200 and $250 respectively, with a two-year service contract requirement.

The next iPhone will include lots of goodies, but support for next-generation 4G wireless networks still isn’t one of them, Sterne Agee & Leach analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a note to investors Tuesday. The new iPhone will get a dual core processor, a “slightly larger” display, and a thinner bezel. No 4G, though.

AT&T has announced the first cities that will get its 4G LTE service. These cities, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio, will see AT&T's version of LTE this summer. Verizon's LTE service, which launched in real (non-beta testing) form late last year, though sans handsets, has vowed to get its LTE service into 175 markets...

Verizon Wireless said its high-speed 4G data network was suffering an outage, a black eye for the carrier that prides itself on the quality and stability of its network.

A next-generation wireless smartphone network can stream video, blaze through the Net ... and steer your car into a ditch? Super-fast “fourth generation” networks carry data at speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second. But the new network from LightSquared may take the high-flying GPS network to zero Gbps -- potentially preventing air-traffic control towers from keeping track of aircraft, the military from accurately relaying locations or ambulances from showing up at the right house after a 911 call.

We got the chance to test T-Mobile's newest, fastest phone, the Galaxy S 4G, and decided to see how fast some other top 4G-labeled phones were. It turns out, not all 4G is equal.

To the average consumer, the intricacies of the wireless technologies used by cellphones and other mobile devices are confusing. Fortunately, cell phone carriers have made it easier on us by inventing the “G,” a nebulous standard that makes people think they understand what they’re getting when they sign up for that two-year contract. The bad news: The carriers themselves typically don’t care about what a 3G or 4G network should actually be. And now, as proof of concept, AT&T has re-branded their existing 3G network as a 4G network.