Phone manufacturers and mobile phone companies often promote their phones or networks as 4G (or sometimes 4G LTE). But what does that really mean? The iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S are sometimes referred to as the iPhone 4G, but does that mean the iPhone 4 is a 4G phone?

That says it all: The iPhone 4 and 4S are not 4G phones. At least, they aren’t if “4G” refers to the 4G or 4G LTE cellular network standard, the successor to the 3G standard used by the iPhone 4 and 4S. That’s what most phone companies mean when they say “4G.”

But the situation is actually more complicated and potentially confusing than that. To fully understand the situation, you have to understand what people mean when they say something is 4G. The reason this is confusing is because there are two different meanings for "4G".

When most companies and some people talk about 4G, they mean a phone that is compatible with a fourth-generation (4G) mobile network.