By Duncan McLeod

Earlier this year, Cell C lost a battle with its larger rivals, Vodacom and MTN, over its use of the term “4Gs” in its advertising campaigns.

MTN and Vodacom argued to the final appeal committee of the Advertising Standards Authority, which found in their favour, that ordinary consumers could be misled into believing that Cell C had a next-generation mobile broadband network, when in fact it was offering an evolved third-generation (3G) network like its rivals.

When Cell C launched its mobile broadband network in 2009, it began by claiming it had built a fourth-generation (4G) network. Under pressure to justify those claims, it later adopted the “4Gs” moniker, arguing, rather disingenuously, that it stood for “for great speed” and “for great service”.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines a 4G network as one that is able to deliver peak download connection speeds of more than 1Gbit/s (100Mbit/s when in motion) using, for example, the evolved version of long-term evolution (LTE) technology, known as LTE Advanced. It also requires peak upload speeds of at least 500Mbit/s.

At the end of the day, though, it’s all marketing speak, a way to try to simplify the arcane language used in the industry to describe different types of wireless access technologies. It’s far simpler for consumers to use terms such as 2G, 3G and 4G than to talk about GPRS, Edge, W-CDMA, UMTS, HDSPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and LTE. The abbreviations are enough to make even a geek’s head swim.

With the exception of Cell C, local operators have followed the ITU’s definitions closely, sometimes referring to 3.5G and 3.75G to explain how their networks have evolved from the original 3G specification. However, I suspect these terms can be just as confusing to consumers.

Despite the ITU’s definition of 4G, many operators and telecommunications handset and equipment manufacturers worldwide have already broken ranks, describing their early LTE networks as 4G. In the US, 4G is already taken to mean first-generation LTE, even though the speeds offered using the technology fall well short of the 1Gbit/s download speed proposed by the ITU.

Ironically, even the Huawei modems being used by MTN as part of its LTE trial in Gauteng bear the “4G” logo, even if the operator insists its network is an evolution of the 3G standard.

Visit the websites of US operators such as Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, and they’re all trumpeting their new “4G” LTE networks. Network equipment vendors such as Huawei, ZTE and Ericsson do the same, as do many handset manufacturers, which have taken to appending “4G” to their first LTE devices.

Eventually, I suspect, 4G will come to mean first-generation LTE, whatever the technocrats at the ITU have decreed. Local operators may as well start using the term for their LTE networks — provided, of course, they don’t all end up reporting each other to Advertising Standards Authority again.