In the status bar of your smartphone or tablet you will often find the characters 4G and 4G+. We will explain which details are hidden behind the abbreviations and whether 4G and LTE are the same thing.
The meaning of 4G and 4G+
Like the abbreviations 3G, E and G, the two characters 4G and 4G+ stand for the mobile data connection.
If you see a “4G” in the smartphone’s bar, it means that you are currently in an area where the smartphone can receive fourth-generation mobile Internet, LTE. This is the current highway of mobile Internet: Those who have booked a corresponding rate plan can surf at up to 300 megabits per second or more. For the most part, however, the very fast connections are only achieved in optimal cases and in some locations.
There are similarities and differences between the two designations:
- Both 4G and 4G+ denote an LTE connection. This means that you will only see the abbreviations if you have an LTE-enabled device and a corresponding contract.
- However, not all LTE is the same. There are differences in speed depending on the area and mobile phone provider.
How fast is 4G, 4G+ and 5G in Mbps?
- With 4G you can achieve speeds of up to 150 Mbps. The average download speed of this LTE connection is 20.83 Mbps with 4G, the upload speed is 1.48 Mbps and the average response time is 54.17 ms.
- 4G+ is even faster. The abbreviation stands for the latest LTE standard, the so-called LTE Advanced. Here, speeds of up to 450 Mbps are possible. In practice, the average download speed is 123.9 Mbps, the upload is 31 Mbps and the response time is 38 ms.
- While 4G continues to be optimized for residential users and is perfectly adequate, 5G is expected to benefit industry in particular. Speeds of up to 10 GBit/s are promised, which is 10 times faster than 4G.
4G+ is a faster version of 4G. 4G+ is also called LTE-A, LTE-Advanced or 4.5G. It allows phones to receive data from multiple bands and can combine several bands to increase speed.
LTE+ – also called LTE-A or LTE-Advanced, is an upgraded version of LTE. LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution, is the technology behind 4G. Therefore, LTE+ is the technology behind 4G+ and is faster than regular 4G.
4G+ allows phones to receive data from multiple bands for increased speed, however, depending on your area, you may not see an increase in speed. This usually happens in high load areas, where 4G+ is used to balance band capacity instead of increasing speed.
4G+ is used to combine several bands to receive data on your device. This can increase speed, but it can also help balance the mobile band capacity, to give you a dependable mobile data connection.
