Why Are Some Carriers Pushing Subscribers To Upgrade Their 3G phones?

3G and 4G networks are common terms heard in advertising for mobile providers. Both promise high speed internet connections and reliability when compared to previous networks, such as 2G. Over the last year, some carriers have begun to push 3G users toward the 4G network. While it may seem like a marketing ploy, carriers do have a reason for the 4G push.

3G

3G stands for the evolved third-generation family of radio interfaces. 3G has various technological advancements over previous radio interface networks, such as enhanced data rates and it was the answer to consumer demand for a faster internet on mobile devices.

Prior to 3G, users had the 2G network. 2G was not suited to bandwidth hogging activities and didn’t support mobile television watching and many other common phone applications in use today. Since 2G’s capacity was smaller than that of 3G, web access was slower and sometimes unstable.

The third-generation network was designed with smartphone users in mind, facilitating fast data transfer speeds, higher quality video, clearer sound and high speed internet. 3G’s streamlined services and increased bandwidth levels resulted in a network capable of handling large volumes of data without a decrease in speed or stability. Smartphones with more features were released by carriers specifically for 3G network use.

4G

4G, the fourth-generation network, is the evolved model of 3G. 4G has higher data transfer speeds and is designed to handle bandwidth intensive activities, such as web television viewing, multimedia text messaging and digital video broadcasting. Common web activities today take up more bandwidth than the activities of a few years ago.

The improvements in 4G are not as easy to spot as the improvements in 3G were. Most 4G improvements revolved around enhancing data speeds and video and sound quality as opposed to employing new applications. Users may not see a noticeable difference between 3G and 4G access in some data activities.

Carrier’s 4G Push

3G became and remains immensely popular among users. The adoption of 3G by users grew significantly in the years following its availability and the numbers continue to climb. This embrace of 3G by the technological and consumer market has left carriers with large 3G networks carrying heavy traffic.

When 4G technology entered the market, some carriers invested millions of dollars in the creation of their own 4G networks. 4G uses bandwidth more efficiently than 3G and is more suited for the bandwidth hogging apps and games that are popular among mobile internet users.

Carriers want users to adopt 4G because of the financial investment in the network’s creation and the network’s efficiency and to ease the demand on the carrier’s 3G networks. Since 4G gives a user better speeds for bandwidth heavy activities, such as watching streamed movies, carriers hope to sell more of the higher data packages to 4G users.

Phone carriers have employed various tactics to get users to switch to 4G devices. Some new phone models only work on 4G networks. Carrier advertisements focus on the benefits and improved speeds of 4G over 3G.

Despite the push toward 4G devices, 4G adoption by users has been much slower than the adoption of 3G. Because 4G generally improves the current features of 3G but doesn’t bring many new services to the table, users are not flocking to the network as they did with 3G.

The above article is composed and edited by Sarah James. She is associated with many technology and broadband related companies as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to internet providers, internet options, best mobile broadband etc.

Tags: 3G carriers, 3G phone, 4G carriers, 4G phone, mobile carriers