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Originally Posted by TimT
Many phones wont work on Verizons 4G band, apparently the whole Verizon data network uses different protocols than the other providers... and off contract Verizon phones will not work with other carriers 4G and LTE networks...
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EVERY GSM carrier in the US uses different data bands to every other, just about. This is masked by chipsets that handle multiple bands - like the last 3 generations of Nexus devices, which have the bands for AT&T or T-Mobile/common Euro frequencies in the same chipset, rather than a specific phone/model for each carrier.
The actual data protocols each carrier's equipment talks over those bands to the handset - are yet another issue/source of incompatibility again.
Non-GSM phones? Who the heck cares... CDMA is so 20th century...
There IS NO 4G in the US - there's about 12-15 test markets world-wide for 4G right now - all in Europe/Scaninavia as far as I know, but maybe a couple in Asia..
The "4G" you're being sold is really properly called "3.5G" or "3.9G" - "LTE", by definition, is actually 3G. Blame the marketers for jumping the gun in their endless oneupmanship dance (and the ITU, for muddying the waters).
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Although marketed as a 4G wireless service, LTE (as specified in the 3GPP Release 8 and 9 document series) does not satisfy the technical requirements the 3GPP consortium has adopted for its new standard generation, and which were originally set forth by the ITU-R organization in its IMT-Advanced specification. However, due to marketing pressures and the significant advancements that WIMAX, HSPA+ and LTE bring to the original 3G technologies, ITU later decided that LTE together with the aforementioned technologies can be called 4G technologies.[7] The LTE Advanced standard formally satisfies the ITU-R requirements to be considered IMT-Advanced.[8] And to differentiate LTE Advanced and WiMAX-Advanced from current 4G technologies, ITU has defined them as "True 4G".[9][10]
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Careful what you wish for - when you really get 4G/LTE Advanced, band/protocol fragmentation (and thus carrier/network mobility) will get probably get much, much worse. Which is fine for those of you that "upgrade" your phone every 2-3 years anyway, and get locked into a contract - and not so great for people who want unlocked standards-based devices that work anywhere in the world on a local SIM.
Data bandwidth on a mobile device pretty much became irrelevant to me once it stepped up to be comparable with fixed broadband - which made it viable for emergency tethering/access. But if I want to stream video, I think I'll watch that on my 55" TV, thanks
I used Straight Talk on the T-Mobile plan with a Google phone (my personal preference is for the Galaxy Nexus over the Nexus 5) for almost 2 years. Service identical to T-Mobile - because it uses the same towers/network. Data is stated to be "unlimited" - but apparently isn't - like many other carriers. Think Sprint is the only truly "unlimited" data cap carrier, interwebs have lots of information on this if you care; I never came anywhere close to hitting the (2G? 5G?) monthly cap with just maps/Google music/web browsing. Customer Service was just fine.