Almost 50% of U.S. Consumers Don't Think They Need 4G LTE According to Survey

[jroc]

All I know is...its like going from dial up, DSL to cable, Fios. Once I had cable, you couldnt pay me to go back to dial up, DSL. I have almost the fastest tier for my home ISP. I barely use it like I used to. But I dont plan on downgrading, even if it will save money.

I have a RAZR, and I dont even like using my phone for network related things when its in 3G. Those that dont think they need it, dont have it. I dont need it...but I want it. And I dont plan on going back to 3G.

 

[acousticshade]

Time to chime in with my 2¢ worth, I have never met anyone that needs 4g, let alone 3g, cell phone in general. The operative word here is "needs". But I'll be the first one to say I "want" 4g etc. Can't wait for 5g, my order is already in. To say we need 4g is inane.
Let the bashing begin.

Well you could say that all anyone really needs is air, food, water and shelter too. There are many instances, however, where speed starts to become a necessity. If my computer takes 5 minutes to boot up every morning & Joe's only takes 30 seconds, Joe gets 4.5 minutes more work done every day. Multiply that times all your employees if you own a business and quickly you will see how speed of operations is now very important. This is one of the reasons Microsoft is going to a fast boot & 4g is important. It the corporate world, wasted time is wasted money, lost profits & lost opportunities.

Of course, the surveyed sheep in this story probably don't understand this because instead of doing any true research, they just listen to the blah blah from the high schoolers working at apple/walmart/best buy.

 

[acousticshade]

If you didn't have a strong signal (which can be hard to determine sometimes) it wasn't an Apples to Apples comparison. (No pun intended)

I live in a strong 4G area and the iPhone is no contest.

+1
It also depends on cell traffic too. From what I understand at&t 4G is more like 3.5g, but if he had no network traffic & you did, you will see a difference. Recheck your speed test outside with a good signal at off hours & you should see a difference.

 

[armeddroid]

Totally fits. We are talking about average consumers NOT enthusiasts.
I don't mean ricer kits, either. Factory accessories.

Lol no it doesn't fit.
The example used was a 250 hp Mercedes vs 400hp Mercedes and slapping "factory accessories" on it to make it "prettier" to sell?
Er no.
What factory accessories can you put on a car that makes the car prettier to influence me to want to buy a 250hp Mercedes over the 400hp one?
Please...
This same equation can make an average consumer into an enthusiast.
Point is that numbers sell.
Better specs and better whatever makes it happen.
People upgrade their phones alot cause it's faster, better etc.
And how do they know it?
BIGGER numbers then the previous one.
Even the average consumer looks at that.

As I said.. bad example.

 

[lloydstrans]

Well you could say that all anyone really needs is air, food, water and shelter too. There are many instances, however, where speed starts to become a necessity. If my computer takes 5 minutes to boot up every morning & Joe's only takes 30 seconds, Joe gets 4.5 minutes more work done every day. Multiply that times all your employees if you own a business and quickly you will see how speed of operations is now very important. This is one of the reasons Microsoft is going to a fast boot & 4g is important. It the corporate world, wasted time is wasted money, lost profits & lost opportunities

Of course, the surveyed sheep in this story probably don't understand this because instead of doing any true research, they just listen to the blah blah from the high schoolers working at apple/walmart/best buy.

This is an example of corporate America's "need" to pad the bottom line.
Let me reiterate my stance, I love 4g, I use 3g for battery and connectivity. And can't wait for the next greatest gadget to "play" with.
On a side note corporate America will be challenged in court fairly soon. Seems I you have a smart phone you are technically on the clock more.

 

[liftedplane]

Time to chime in with my 2¢ worth, I have never met anyone that needs 4g, let alone 3g, cell phone in general. The operative word here is "needs". But I'll be the first one to say I "want" 4g etc. Can't wait for 5g, my order is already in. To say we need 4g is inane.
Let the bashing begin.

You are indeed correct, however i prefer to be connected and having information at my fingertips instead of how it was in the nineties.

Though I've gone without plenty of times if rather not.

Speaking of not needing tech that new show about all electronics suddenly not working looks epic, i can't remember the name but it looks awesome.

Sent from my frozenly delicious bionic.

 

[lloydstrans]

If I remember correctly we didn't have smart phones and computers were even dumber. I like numbers, D'oh, pi to the millionth place epically failed by the USA's most advanced computer in the eighties. Now a modern computer can hand that task in 10 seconds

 

[liftedplane]

And THAT's the thing.......I'm on an unlimited 3G plan right now.....if I "upgrade" to 4G I lose my unlimited plan and then have to buy data in increments so that I've got a cap.

Looking around, I don't see any carriers out there with unlimited plans any more......part of it is that I don't want to change carriers because although I'm retired I'm still on a govt. contract plan that gives me a 15% discount on service charges and 25% off on hardware.

I'm thinking that as long as my D2G (and my wife's D2G) are working...I'll just hang onto them and the unlimited 3G plan we've got.

Sprint is the only truly unlimited left and I've heard their service is getting much much better.

You may be able to keep unlimited, you really never know until you try, out get the right rep. Tell them you either get to keep it or off you are.

Sent from my frozenly delicious bionic.

 

[lloydstrans]

A couple more jumped in to the unlimited no throttling plan as of late.

 

[sweeeeet]

I need 16g

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[acousticshade]

This is an example of corporate America's "need" to pad the bottom line.
Let me reiterate my stance, I love 4g, I use 3g for battery and connectivity. And can't wait for the next greatest gadget to "play" with.
On a side note corporate America will be challenged in court fairly soon. Seems I you have a smart phone you are technically on the clock more.

It's not always a need to pad the bottom line. Sometimes its a need to be more efficient to survive. Look at HTC. I bet they are digging deep right now to figure out how to keep the doors open.

 

[geoff5093]

They need a larger poll, if you asked my mother she would say "What's 4G"? Now if you ask the mothers teenage son, most likely they will say they love 4G because everything is faster.

 

[lloydstrans]

Okay, in a nutshell, technology is the number one cause of workplace goofing off. Plenty of stats to verify that fact.
Case in point in Los Angeles the government nearly crashed their system by watching the Olympics.
Another case in point, MOI, used to read the paper in the morning then work all day, now I goof off on this device on and off all day. BTW bottom line is just a number.

 

[SteveIrv]

Sprint is the only truly unlimited left and I've heard their service is getting much much better.

You may be able to keep unlimited, you really never know until you try, out get the right rep. Tell them you either get to keep it or off you are.

Sent from my frozenly delicious bionic.

Verizon's policy is that you are allowed to keep unlimited when you replace your phone IF you pay full retail price for your phone. So....I can keep my unlimited plan (which I use nearly zero data on anyway since nearly ALL my data use is over wifi) and pay @$500-$600 for my replacement phone, or I can switch to the new calling plan and continue paying about $100 for replacement phones......

I still haven't heard anyone answer the question "What will 4G do for me??"...other than one guy who said something about watching 15 minutes of HBO when he's waiting somewhere (if I'm waiting somewhere for 15 minutes, I'll fire up the Kindle app on my 3G phone and read whatever book I'm working on at the time).

So...I get it...4G delivers data faster than 3G.....what good does that do for me if nearly all my data use is done over high speed, broadband, wifi AND if I'm forced by my provider to live within data caps when off wifi????

When we first went to smart phones I paid the $30 a month for unlimited data for myself and $15 for "limited" data for my wife. Soon realized she was going to use more data than I was because she still works for a living (I'm retired) and she loves streaming music. So I boosted her plan to unlimited. She found pretty quick that if she streamed music to her phone....her battery was dead by some time after lunch so her phone was useless the rest of the day. She went back to using an mp3 player with a built in fm tuner...battery on it lasts a week on one charge.

So......between the two of us...we're paying $60 for unlimited data and when I check our usage I see that monthly we use something like .04GB. If each of us is using about .02GB of data each month......what will 4G do for us????? I mean...I understand if you're working, you're out and about, in plaes a lot where high speed wifi isn't....and you need to do e-mail, document transfers, if you're using your phone as a GPS (I've got an actual GPS LOL) all kinds of stuff. Speed is a factor for you. Only time I used 3G to look something up on the web when I was out and about.....I googled an address.

Of course the new calling plans do ONE thing for me......they replace the limit we have on talk minutes (wife and I share 700 minutes a month, rarely go over or even come close, with unlimited talk......which wasn't much of an issue since nearly everyone we know is with the same provider and mobile to mobile with them was free anyway....LOL

 

[jayman350]

I've read everyone's comments/criticism over how they don't need 4G and how they are happy with their 3G, etc, etc. Thats all well and good, but the main difference between 3G and 4G (aside from speed) is the fact that you can now talk on the phone and simultaneously use the internet. AT&T was using this as their iphone marketing plan against VZW, since you couldn't do this on VZW, unless you were connected to wifi. Not a big deal for most, but when you need to look something up while on the phone it is very helpful.

I absolutely love having 4G and would not consider going back to 3G. For a while I had 4G at home and 3G at work. When I was at work it was almost painful to go online b/c it really was that much slower than what I was used to at home. Speaking of home, I have a wifi network at home that I hardly ever connect to with my phone. The wifi is just too slow and unreliable compared to my 4G connection (may partly be my router) but 4G is just that good that I don't want to use wifi.

So while most people don't need 4G, once you get a taste of it chances are you won't want to have to go back.