Sorry vividwireless your WiMAX network is NOT 4G

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 11 February 2010 16:14

Opinion and Analysis

For some time now I've been waging a campaign against the misr-representation of LTE and WiMAX networks as being 4G. It seems to have provoked a response from vividwireless.

The practice of describing such technologies as 4G technologies is extremely widespread, and not just by vendors and network operators who understandably want to 'talk up' the capabilities of their products and networks. Supposedly independent research firms and analysts are often equally guilty.

So far as I know I am probably the most public pedant in Australia to have railed against this practice, but I do have some support from overseas experts.

As I reported last May, Strand Consulting issued a press release that opened with the statement: "Pardon me, but 4G does not exist - it has been invented by the press and by people with little knowledge of the mobile world and the standards being used."

I agreed with their conclusion but not with their choice of culprit! And not on them laying the blame on ignorance: many of the perpetrators are only too well aware that 4G technologies are today futureware.

Earlier I had taken issue with Ericsson and TeliaSonera for claiming that the LTE supply contracts they had just signed represented "the world's first 4G commercial contracts"

I have to confess that I have also been waging a covert campaign; in particular against Australia's premier '4G' operator, vividwireless. It  peppers its press releases with references to 4G, none of which I repeat when reporting its progress, substituting instead the term 'mobile WiMAX'.

Well it now seems to be open warfare. Vividwireless chairman Ryan Stokes told Comms Alliance's Broadband and Beyond conference in Sydney this week that "While some may question the validity of calling this a 4G network, we note there is no dispute in North America over the description of an equivalent network by Clear as 4G.  In any case we've checked and discovered that Next G would certainly not be available to us. Perhaps I should just say that our G is the next G."

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