Speaker 1: Welcome to brainstoff from how Stuff Works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart Happens him Marshall Brain with today's question what types
Speaker 1: of four G phone service are available in the United
Speaker 1: States today? If you have a smart phone, you may
Speaker 1: be interested in four G service for the data that
Speaker 1: comes into your phone. Four G stands for fourth generation
Speaker 1: and there are currently three systems in the United States
Speaker 1: that are advertising for G service. Sprint claimed the title
Speaker 1: of the first four G network in the United States
Speaker 1: when it deployed its HTC EVO four G phone on
Speaker 1: its y max network earlier in two thousand ten. Sprint
Speaker 1: has y Max in about thirty cities in the United
Speaker 1: States at the moment. With y Max, you received data
Speaker 1: at a rate of between three and six megabits per
Speaker 1: second when ATA is coming into your phone. The second
Speaker 1: network into the marketplace is t Mobiles hsp A plus network.
Speaker 1: Prior to this, hsp A plus has not been officially
Speaker 1: considered to be four G, so this is a rebranding
Speaker 1: to some extent, but the rebranding may be warranted because
Speaker 1: t mobiles hsp A plus network is slightly faster than
Speaker 1: sprints Ymax network in many cases, but it's only slightly faster,
Speaker 1: it's still operating in the same kind of three to
Speaker 1: six megabits per second range as the y MAX network is.
Speaker 1: On the plus side, hs P A Plus is offered
Speaker 1: in about twice as many cities as y MAX is
Speaker 1: offered in. And then there's Verizon, which is deploying its
Speaker 1: LTE network. This should be a big deal because LTE
Speaker 1: has the potential to be ten times faster than either
Speaker 1: ymax or hsp A Plus, and it could be available
Speaker 1: in a lot more cities. Now here's the funny thing.
Speaker 1: Up until recently, four G meant a hundred megabits per
Speaker 1: set can or more. Verizon might brush up against that
Speaker 1: if LTE pans out the way they say it well,
Speaker 1: but even so, it will not be there all the time.
Speaker 1: So in the United States we aren't actually getting what
Speaker 1: used to be called for G. We're just getting something
Speaker 1: better than three G. It might be years before we
Speaker 1: see a hundred megabits per second on our phones, or
Speaker 1: even in our homes for that matter, here in the
Speaker 1: United States. In other parts of the world, it's a
Speaker 1: lot different. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
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