Samsung Captivate 4g?

You will have to buy a new 4G phone for that.

AT&T's network is really not 4G - It's a marketing gimmick. 3G and 4G are standards that 95% of consumers really do not know or care about other than the fact that 4 is a higher number than 3 and most people equate it with a faster speed.

AT&T hasn't upgraded anything to "4G." They have merely relabeled their existing 3G network and are now advertising it as "4G."

“The whole industry has come to equate more speed with 4G,” said Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T’s wireless unit. He says consumers generally won’t notice the difference in speed between AT&T’s HSPA-plus and upcoming LTE networks, so it makes sense to call both 4G.

John Donovan, AT&T’s chief technology officer, said speeds on HSPA-plus and LTEphones will feel similar now, but users will start to notice a difference in the two technologies once richer applications become available.

 

http://motherboard.tv/2011/1/7/at-t-relabels-their-data-network-proves-4g-doesn-t-really-mean-anything

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Thus your Captivate is using the same network, except that instead of it being called 3G, they are selling it as 4G. It's still just HSPA+

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@subterfug wrote:

Thus your Captivate is using the same network, except that instead of it being called 3G, they are selling it as 4G. It's still just HSPA+

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I thought that the Captivate only used HSPA, not HSPA+.  That would make it still 3G only (by old standards), wouldn't it?

Yes, you are correct. The captivate is HSPA not HSPA+. So yes he would need another phone to use a HSPA+ network, but HSPA+ is also 3G. The difference is up to 84Mbps for HSPA+ versus 100Mbps to 1Gbps for a true 4G network.

I'm getting technical here... I'm just pointing out that AT&T does not have a true 4G network although they are advertising it as such. So for the OP, yes he could upgrade to a "4G" phone, but then he's not on a real 4G network. T-Mobile is doing the exact same thing. Not sure about Verizon and Sprint though.

I've logged into the wireless settings on my Captivate and it say HSPA+, but you're saying it only connects to HSPA. Does that mean it's not a HSPA+ capable phone?

Both AT&T and T-Mo are marketing HSPA+ as 4G. But AT&T also is working on LTE network, a true 4G network.

Our Captivate and all the current Galaxy S phones (GSM) are HSPA only, not capable of HSPA+. T-Mobile actually will release a new Vibrant 4G phone soon that includes HSPA+ radio chip to replace the current Virbant (Galaxy S).

Technically, even Verizon's LTE network currently can only deliver 10mbps real world speed. So, real 4G or fake 4G doesn't make much difference right now. In the future, the LTE has great potential to ramp up speed while HSPA+ will stall. But that will be couple of generations of phones away.

I'm just hope all the iPhone users will jump ship to Verizon so that we can enjoy the full bandswith of 3G.

Samsung is release a new phone derived from the Galaxy S line called the Infuse 4G for the AT&T networks. So yes you will have to buy a new phone in order to get faster speeds. Best comparison I can think of is the difference between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3Gs. You need the technology in your phone to take advantage of the upgraded speed.

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@foxbat121 wrote:

Both AT&T and T-Mo are marketing HSPA+ as 4G. But AT&T also is working on LTE network, a true 4G network.

 

Our Captivate and all the current Galaxy S phones (GSM) are HSPA only, not capable of HSPA+. T-Mobile actually will release a new Vibrant 4G phone soon that includes HSPA+ radio chip to replace the current Virbant (Galaxy S).

 

Technically, even Verizon's LTE network currently can only deliver 10mbps real world speed. So, real 4G or fake 4G doesn't make much difference right now. In the future, the LTE has great potential to ramp up speed while HSPA+ will stall. But that will be couple of generations of phones away.

 

I'm just hope all the iPhone users will jump ship to Verizon so that we can enjoy the full bandswith of 3G.

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Only a couple of phone generations?  Come on, HSPA+ will have to have a longer useful life than 6 or 8 weeks 

I compared AT&T wireless network on my HTC Inspire 4G with my wife's iphone 3gs several times.  Here are the results:

Here are range of speeds from the HTC Inspire 4G: ping*: 257ms to 23ms, upload: 45kbps to 1644kbps, download: 26kbps to 2648kbps

Here are range of speeds on my wife's iphone 3gs: ping: 479ms to 437ms, upload: 8kbps to 18kbps, download: 92kbps to 154kbps

All tests were at the same time, same location using "speedtest.net"  

*lower ping times are better, so I listed the higher ping times first

The two tests might connect to different test servers. I saw my friend's 3gs consistently reach 1mbps up and 2 ro 3mbps down. On the other hand my Captivate max out at 200kbps up (due to AT&T lock out HSUPA on it).