4G isn’t a technology — it’s a benchmark. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency tasked with regulating such things, 4G is a wireless standard. Technologies that achieve this standard can deliver peak download speeds of 100 Mbps — at least that’s what it used to mean. While wireless carriers are eager to market their latest devices as 4G, none actually deliver 100 Mbps. So instead, the carriers essentially have redefined the term “4G” to mean whatever they want it to. And the ITU has somewhat gone along with it, stating in December 2010 that “technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third-generation (3G) systems now deployed” can be called 4G. (A 3G system’s minimum download speeds typically are between 128 and 384 kilobits per second.)
