{"id":24767,"date":"2012-10-23T10:02:15","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T08:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=24767"},"modified":"2012-10-24T08:50:07","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T06:50:07","slug":"lte-and-4g-marketing-battle-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/24767\/lte-and-4g-marketing-battle-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"LTE and 4G marketing battle in SA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Term Evolution (LTE<\/a>) is making headlines in South Africa after Vodacom<\/a> launched South Africa\u2019s first commercial LTE service earlier this month. The operator avoided using its parent company Vodafone<\/a>\u2019s 4G branding, raising questions over whether LTE will be branded as 4G locally.<\/p>\n

Vodacom has previously opposed the use of the term 4G by competitor Cell C<\/a> to describe its HSPA+ network, and has won an Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA<\/a>) battle which forced Cell C to pull its 4G marketing campaign.<\/p>\n

The shoe is now on the other foot after Vodacom launched LTE at the 2012 MyBroadband Conference. The International Telecommunication Union\u2019s (ITU<\/a>\u2019s) defines 4G as LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced. The ITU also explicitly stated that it does not view LTE, WiMax, and HSPA+ as 4G.<\/p>\n

Cell C has not forgotten about its 4G battle with Vodacom. Cell C CEO Knott-Craig<\/a> says that the group will definitely oppose Vodacom if it wants to brand its LTE network as 4G.<\/p>\n

4G-LTE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Vodafone<\/a>

Vodafone LTE 4G logo<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite this history, Vodacom executive Jannie van Zyl<\/a> argues that the term 4G should be used in relation to LTE.<\/p>\n

Van Zyl says that Vodacom is currently marketing LTE as LTE, but adds that this is not the real question. \u201cThe real question is what the industry will do and what consumers will understand,\u201d said van Zyl.<\/p>\n

According to van Zyl the global telecommunications industry is using the term 4G to describe LTE. \u201c75% of operators brand their LTE networks as 4G or 4G-LTE,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vendors like Samsung<\/a> and Huawei<\/a> are also branding their LTE equipment as LTE, while the media has started to use the term 4G to describe LTE.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese 4G branded devices and messages will come into South Africa outside of the control of Vodacom, which means that we cannot control the message our subscribers will receive,\u201d said van Zyl.<\/p>\n

Van Zyl argues that to avoid consumer confusion, LTE should not be labeled as LTE or as 4G, but rather as 4G-LTE.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy tying together a marketing and technical definition, we do not favour any specific one but reduces confusion in the industry as much as possible,\u201d said van Zyl.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too late to save 4G?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Knott-Craig\u2019s 4G warning to Vodacom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom breaks own 4G rules, CEO explains<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

4G battle ends in defeat for Cell C<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s official: LTE, WiMax and HSPA+ not 4G<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LTE is technically not a 4G technology, but the global telecommunications industry is driving the use of the term 4G to be used for LTE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2278,43,42,26,1702,525,27],"class_list":["post-24767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-4g","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-jannie-van-zyl","tag-lte","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24767"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24819,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24767\/revisions\/24819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}