Not understanding 4G could be good for carriers; not Apple

Monday, January 24th, 2011 Chris Witeck, Director Product Marketing

Business Insider provided this ‘Chart of the Day’ on people’s perception of 4G.

In short, 893 of 2131 people claimed they knew what it was (42%), and of those who claimed they knew what it was, only 54% provided a plausible definition. That leaves just 23% of people responding to their survey who actually knew what 4G is. This coincides with the data they present that only 29% of people polled are planning on buying a 4G phone this year.

The comment made in this article that this is good news for Apple, since Apple may not have a 4G phone until next year. True, but I also see a sizable opportunity for carriers that are offering competitive 4G smartphones to the iPhone, leading to a potentially bad news story for Apple. How so?

First, before I explain my reasoning- I want to steer clear of the debate on what 4G is really supposed to mean. Yes, the 4G offerings out there don’t exactly match up to what 4G was supposed to mean. We talk about that point in an earlier post on this blog titled “the New Math of 4G”. However, the slate of 4G offerings out there should be faster, in some cases much faster, than many of the current 3G offerings out there. That includes the 3G network ATT offers to their iPhone subscribers that has many iPhone users pulling their hair out.

Now getting back to my point, how is the fact that people don’t know and don’t care what 4G is potentially bad news for Apple? Simply put, it represents an opportunity for carriers to educate to the masses not what 4G is technically, but instead associate 4G simply as better than the user experience people get with ATT on an iPhone.

Once people start to associate 4G not so much as better than 3G, but that their user experience on a non-iPhone is better than an iPhone, then maybe Apple will have something to worry about. At least until they have 4G on the iPhone.

Tags: 4G network, Apple, carriers