Apple Drops 4G Branding From New iPad

Apple Drops 4G Branding From New iPad
14/05/2012 by Emily Price on Mashable

Apple is changing the way it’s marketing the iPad + 4G, dropping the 4G altogether and replacing it with the word “cellular.”

The move comes after complaints from an Australian competition regulator. While Apple was marketing the tablet as “4G” in the country, it currently cannot connect to Australia’s 4G network or the 4G networks in other countries outside of North America. Due to that fact, regulators felt Apple was misleading Australian customers about the device’s possible data speeds.

While much of the iPad’s website marketing — at least here in the U.S — still has the the 4G LTE designation, when it comes time to buy the tablet in the store, you’re now given the option to purchase just a “Wi-Fi” version, or a “Wi-Fi + Cellular” model.

While the term “4G” does refer to the data speed a device can achieve, it simply means that it can connect to a 4th-generation data network faster than its 3G predecessor. In the U.S., many device manufacturers use the “4G” label on devices that are not capable of data speeds as fast as some of their 4G competition.

One example is Apple’s iPhone 4S on AT&T, which now has a 4G designation, although according to the International Telecommunications Union the network the iPhone specifically runs on (HSDPA) is not a fourth-generation network. It’s more like 3.5G.

The new iPad is currently only capable of connecting to five true 4G networks, all of which are located in the U.S. or Canada.

[via 9to5 Mac]

Mobiles More than humans in 2012, says Cisco

Mobiles More than humans in 2012, says Cisco

Mobile devices will outnumber humans this year, according to network firm Cisco's latest analysis of global mobile data traffic.

By 2016 it predicts that there will be 10 billion mobile connected devices around the world.

By the same date networks will be carrying 130 exabytes of data each year, equivalent to 33 billion DVDs.

Mobile data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size of the global internet in 2000, according to the report.

Gigabyte club
The rise in data consumption is likely to cause more problems for mobile operators already struggling to cope with demand.

Currently the average smartphone uses 150 megabytes of data per month but this is expected to rise to 2.6 gigabytes by 2016, the report found.

"By 2016, 60% of mobile users - three billion people worldwide - will belong to the Gigabyte Club, each generating more than one gigabyte of mobile data traffic per month," said Suraj Shetty, vice-president of products and solutions at Cisco.

There are various factors that are pushing data consumption ever higher.

People are using more tablet devices which are even more data-hungry than smartphones, the report found.

According to Cisco, tablet use exploded in 2011 - tripling to 34 million devices, each of which is generating over three times more traffic than smartphones. By 2016 it predicts that tablets will account for more than 10% of global mobile traffic.

Streaming video
Another factor is faster networks. 4G is currently only available for about 0.2% of mobile connections but they already account for 6% of mobile data traffic, the report said.

Using mobile data on a 4G connection generates 28% more traffic than a non-4G connection, it found.

Apple's iPhones had a reputation for using up more bandwidth than other handsets but the study found that Android consumption is now equal to, if not higher, to iPhone consumption in the US and Western Europe.

Seb Lahtinen, from broadband news site ThinkBroadband, is unsurprised by the findings.

"Most of us use a smart phone on trains, but we still struggle to get a good signal.

"As speeds and quality increases, more users will start watching streaming videos on mobiles, which is likely to lead to an explosion in mobile traffic growth," he said.



Source: BBC