In a not-so shocking report, 47% of US consumers feel they don’t need 4G LTE.
When it comes to network speed improvements/upgrades, eventually you get to a point where faster isn’t better and turns into hurry-up-and-wait mode. For most people on mobile, that’s exactly what 4G LTE is perceived as.
4G (and even 3G) connectivity in all honesty is not bad at all. It serves its purpose quite well and most smartphone users feel they are getting their money’s worth out of 4G service.
The hurry-up-and-wait mode of 4G vs 4G LTE is synonymous to what happens when you compare fiber optic ISP customers compared to cable or DSL. If for example YouTube is having a “bad day” where their servers are overloaded, it doesn’t matter if you have cable or fiber because it’s going to be slow across the board.
Internet at this stage of the game only moves as fast as the servers allow instead of how fast the network allows, be it at home or on mobile.
In addition, 4G LTE when you really think about it isn’t going to be a game-changer, so to speak. It’s not like it will send texts any faster or send out emails any quicker. For those that do tethering from a smartphone to a laptop, yes, they will appreciate the LTE difference. But for everyone else, “plain 4G” does the job just fine.
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