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

[dgstorm]

Investment firm Piper Jaffray recently performed a survey that had some intriguing results. Their survey basically asked 3000 respondents several questions related to 4G LTE. The results of this study suggest that most folks either don't care about or don't understand 4G LTE. Almost 50% of those surveyed indicated that they had no need for 4G LTE, over 25% didn't think there was any difference between the competing forms of 4G service, and just 15% believed that LTE was the best form of 4G service.

This basically relegates this service to a "geek/power-user" niche in the eyes of the masses, and that is probably why adoption isn't quite as fast as many carriers have hoped. It also appears that we aren't educating our friends and family members on the facts and merits of 4G LTE. We need to step it up!

Source: PhoneArena

 

[J515OP]

I think this is directly attributable to the telcos. This is what happens when you start calling anything you want 4G for marketing purposes. So now you have telcos advertising against each other for "true 4G" and all kinds of terminology being thrown around. You know what I really hate? My HTC One X tells me that my data connection is 4G then sometimes it pops up a little LTE under the 4G. So essentially it says I have a 4G connection but sometimes I have a 4GLTE connection.

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DISTINGUISH 4G AND 4G LTE!!!!

The system is fundamentally flawed. Instead of the marketing double speak we should have a simple system just as the voice connection is indicated by 0-5 bars. Why not make these color coded based on speed of connection, say Red for <2Mb/s (essentially Edge), the "normal range" speeds of 2-25Mb/s White or the default color for the phone bars and Green for +25Mb/s. This doesn't have anything to do with the "technology" behind the data but gives you a simple indication of speed just like 0-5 bars give you a simple indication of signal strength. Users don't need to know what network they are connected to, they just want to know if the data is fast or not.

RED = SLOW, WHITE/DEFAULT = NORMAL SPEEDS (range is decent to fast) and GREEN = VERY FAST CONNECTION (probably faster than your home broadband connection).

 

[Ph0t0man]

I must be part of the 46.8%. E-mail, phone calls and a few text messages per day is all I use my phone for. A phone as a internet browser or TV is a joke.

 

[leeshor]

JP, you are so right. But I also have a theory about that survey. I know quite a few people who do not yet own smart phones so they wouldn't know the difference anyway. And some STILL don't use their smartphone for browsing or downloading. Even a slow Internet connection can suitably handle 80% of the E-Mail users out there.

But your point about the confusion re: the real speeds is a good one. 4G was advertised by more than one provider and the computer press had a field day with was it really 4G or was it hype.

One other, connected, thought. They didn't say for certain how many of the people who were surveyed had phones much less smartphones.

 

[J515OP]

One other, connected, thought. They didn't say for certain how many of the people who were surveyed had phones much less smartphones.

Very good point, though the source does say a survey of mobile subscribers. It would be much more relevant if they surveyed smart phone users or at least users who were considering buying one in the next 6 months and might be concerned about such things. So according to a quick Google about 50% of phones are now smart phones (source: U.S. smartphone ownership eclipses feature phones &mdash; Mobile Technology News). This lines up nicely with about 50% of people not thinking they need 4G LTE.

If this is a random survey then statistically half the people surveyed don't even have a smart phone so of course they don't need 4G LTE. I'm calling the results bogus without a better qualification of the type of phone user (one that uses a data connection and probably for more than email).

 

[leeshor]

What's the old saying, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics" (Mark Twain)

But for sure, if there is any qualifier missing the results ARE bogus.