The marketing world is full of vague adjectives like “new,” “better” or “healthy” that don’t necessarily mean much.
The wireless industry has its own buzzword: 4G. Carriers have taken the technical-sounding term for fourth generation and turned it into a vehicle for competing advertising claims that could confuse consumers.
Starting with Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp., wireless carriers have used 4G to describe a major leap in speed, capacity and power over other networks. But operators don’t agree on what constitutes that technological milestone. As a result, 4G has become a marketing term almost unrelated to its technical definition, which is determined by industry standards bodies.
Earlier this month, T-Mobile USA Inc. said it had expanded its 4G service to six markets, adding them to a roster of “America’s largest 4G network.” The carrier’s announcement prompted grumbling from some of its competitors, which said T-Mobile was trying to pass off an improved 3G network as a new 4G network. Critics noted that the carrier itself had refrained from using “4G” to describe its technology, called HSPA+, when it was introduced.
T-Mobile is unapologetic.
“For customers, it’s setting an expectation of a significant change in their experience,” said Bentley Alexander, T-Mobile’s regional vice president of engineering and operations. “It’s a step above and beyond the experience folks are having today. … It’s appropriate to call it a 4G network, and we’re proud to call it that.”
The raised eyebrows over T-Mobile’s 4G announcement underscore the ultracompetitive nature of the wireless industry, which is hungry for revenue from mobile data services — Web surfing, video streaming and photo sharing — that will be further enabled by the newest network technology. Every carrier wants to show it has the best pipelines for that data, and 4G is elegant marketing shorthand.
“To us, what it means is it’s the next…