Jeez, gotta love revisionist history.
The ITU left people twisting in the wind while the 4G spec stayed in committee in what seemed like forever, and there were several points where we expected ratification within a week, only to have it happen months later.
Sprint went with planning for WiMax support over 7 months before the spec changed again and was finally ratified. Six months after Sprint started marketing their first 4G phone, and four or five months after competitors started scrambling to match the new mindset, and one month after the spec was ratified, the ITU said this, in response to pissing off an entire country -
ITU redefines 4G to include LTE, WiMAX and HSPA+ - IntoMobile
Having lived through the HDTV debacle of what HD truly was, I knew on that day that it was only a matter of time before someone coined the term, Full 4G, or, True 4G. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sprint is rolling out LTE now to anticipate new handset delivery. By the time their Network Vision build out completes, Sprint will have the largest, fastest LTE network in the United States, capable of serving the most subscribers, and if they follow the plan from there, will get to LTE Advanced after that - True 4G.
And while that's great for me, so what??
The point of 4G, I thought, was to get to a universal standard. When I visit the UK after whomever there does whatever, will I be able to roam with data services? I will not. (I already don't get voice, but I fix that with a dual CDMA/GSM phone.)
Maybe 5G will settle worldwide communication with data, or 9G in my grandkids' time.
Anyway, 4G was supposed to be a solution. And it is. Depending on how we define the problem.
Just my two cents.