Like most things new, there have been a recent growth in acceptance across all major carriers in Malaysia touting "the fastest or widest 4G network in the country," but what does all this hype actually mean? What is the difference between 4G LTE and 3G? Which network should I choose for LTE the best LTE Coverage?
What is LTE?
LTE as defined by Wikipedia is an acronym for Long Term Evolution, commonly marketed as 4G LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals.
Although the definition has defined LTE fairly accurately, it hasn't given simple minds like mine an easy enough breakdown for me to understand. Here it is, plainly put, LTE is a faster mobile connection, and data terminals. Look at it as the bigger brother of 3G.
For history junkies (also from Wikipedia): The LTE service was first launched publicly by TeliaSonera in Stokholm, and Oslo.
Everyone is going LTE
Today Malaysian carriers advertise their networks as 4G (a few carriers include Digi, Celcom, Maxis, P1 Wimax, Yes 4G, and U Mobile) which confuses a lot of people.
The most notable change you will experience when switching from a 3G network to a LTE network is a significant speed upgrade. LTE networks are on an average 10x faster than 3G. Websites load faster, in fact almost everything loads much faster.
You can check for a list of LTE Networks here.
Choosing the right network
There are 8 companies in 2013 who have been granted access to the 2600 MHz spectrum band; Digi, Celcom, Maxis, P1 Wimax, U Mobile and Yes. In Malaysia Maxis was the only company to have officially launched 4G LTE smartphone plans.
"Maxis's 4G LTE offers speeds up to 75 Mbps, which is less than the required speed of 100 Mbps for the required 4G LTE speed set by Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Although Maxis's LTE on average, depending on where you are, offers ranges of 10 Mbps to 30 Mbps remains to be a good speed bump from 3G, it is still lacking from the 100Mbps required speed.
One other popular network provider in Malaysia is, Digi, has been upgrading its network sites in Malaysia to a new network which Digi names 'Tomorrow Network'. With this upgrade Digi aims to cover at least 95.8% of Malaysia to provide High Speed Internet along with a fully equipped LTE network.
Digi's Tomorrow Network boasts the following benefits:
- Malaysia's first LTE-equipped network (able to provide fiber like speeds to mobile devices)
- Expanding High Speed Internet Coverage (EDGE & 3G) to cover 95.8% of Malaysia.
- More stable network
- More efficient equipment (green initiative - saves more energy)
Further reading: How LTE affect to Malaysia's mobile content business
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What are your views on 4G LTE? What is the impact of LTE to Malaysia?
photo by kowitz
