I'm sure you've seen the commercials: "T-Mobile, the number one 4G network" or "Verizon with the fastest 4G phone". We hear 4G everywhere, but few of us understand it means anything other than FASTER. While 4G sounds better and faster, those companies aren't being quite honest with you. So let me reveal to you a few truths, and also the lie.

Truth: 4G is better

Its true, 4G is better. 4G stands for Fourth Generation, meaning its the fourth generation of technology used by wireless phones. The first generation started in Japan in 1979, and has since expanded to today with the adoption of 3G in 2002. While 3G gave us the ability to send multimedia and lightning text messages, 4G comes with the promise of even more multimedia capability.

4G would run on a packet switching network, which would mean that information is transferred in chunks, regardless of type, in other words your text and images can be simultaneously sent. 4G will have higher, scalable bandwidth requirements and overall better support for multimedia input.

Truth: 4G is faster

4G will be significantly faster when it comes to data rates (how quickly data is transferred to and from your phone). 3G systems must offer a peak rate of at least 200  kilobits per second, kbit/s (NOTE: most 3G systems actually go much faster than this). 4G systems will have a peak rate of 100 Megabits per second, Mbit/s. A megabit is 1000 times faster than a kilobit.

Lets use this example: The average 4 minute MP3 song is 4MB. It takes about 3 minutes to download this song at 200 kbit/s, the required 3G speed. It takes only 30 seconds to download this song at 1 Mbit/s. But 4G, at its peak speed, should be 100 Mbit/s. So essentially, no time at all. You can see where 4G isn't just fourth generation, its over 4 times as fast, too. (You can find out more about download speeds with this calculator.)

Lie: You (can) have 4G

Now, while all this speed and multimedia capacity sounds fantastic, there is the one lie in the mix. No one has 4G. That's right, all those commercials claiming the best 4G network, don't actually have 4G. What they have is more like 3.9G. In 2008, the International Telecommunication Union's Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) put forth the IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications)-Advanced requirements, which are the international standards for 4G.

While "Pre-4G" systems, such as LTE (a term you may have seen attached to certain phone models which stands for long term evolution) have been on the market as early as 2006, they do not fully comply with IMT-Advanced. Two 4G systems do exist in developmental stages, "LTE-Advanced" and "WirelessMAN-Advanced" but neither are available currently.

So how do companies get away with using the term 4G? On December 6th, 2010, ITU-R announced that evolved versions of 3G could be considered 4G provided:

a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed.

No doubt, 3G has drastically improved in the past few years, however it is not yet the 4G promised to us. While you wait for the golden 4G moment of availability, stay educated about the branding terms that mobile companies use. As you market yourself and your company, these changes can make your online efforts more effective as it becomes easier to browse online, download apps and even read emails with multimedia components.

Just a few weeks ago LinkedIn announced their new blackberry app, allowing you to take LinkedIn with you wherever you go.

I have to admit I was already macgyvering a way to do this. I synced up my blackberry to Outlook and then downloaded the Linked-In Outlook plugin. This made life slower but eventually all my contacts ended up on my phone (more on this here).

LinkedIn must have had the same thought I did. All those connections are great but I need to be able to access them easily from my phone. There's just no point to connecting if I can't call them up.

But its more than that. For a long time I categorized LinkedIn as a lesser social media platform. It was for getting business cards stored logically and paper free: that was about it. Don't get me wrong, I know it has more features and some people use it very effectively in their business. But the lack of real time updates and notifications shoved it in to the I'm-too-buzy-to-devote-that-much-energy-right-now category.

But much like my recent post on how Twitter is ineffective without apps; LinkedIn is ineffective without mobile. I have a feeling I will be doing a lot more with LinkedIn in the next few months.

(Additional Note: If you watched my last video blog you'll know my blackberry, may it rest in peace, finally keeled over. So I have not actually gotten to try the LinkedIn blackberry app. However, I got an android and downloaded a Linked-In app. Even though its not an app developed by LinkedIn, I'm still excited to test it and discover all the things I've been missing!)

About a month ago, my watch broke. I've been meaning to get it fixed but just haven't found the time. So the other day, I'm at a party with a group of friends (all in their twenties) and I happen to ask: "What time is it?" Every single person in this group grabs their cell phone to check the time. Of course, I had my blackberry with me, so I could have gotten it out too, but it didn't even occur to me that not one of my friends would bother to have a watch. Then I thought, why have one? You've got a phone.

Of course, this made me think. Cell phones are becoming more and more important in our everyday lives. So the question of giving your business a mobile presence looms. People of all ages are going the "smart" phone route. The average business person has one because either their work or their kids talked them into it. I've said before that paying a ton of money to get a mobile website isn't the best solution for everyone (unless you are a social or shopping website). However, there are a few things you can do to help mobile-savvy users learn about you.

First, have you bothered to check out how your website looks on a mobile phone? If you haven't, try an emulator. Some websites look better than others. This website is readable but the images are wonky. However, other sites can be unfathomable. So here are some tips:

1. Make sure your information is in all the major online directories. Have you bothered putting your business info into Yahoo, Google and the YellowPages? I do searches for information on handy-men, car shops and restaurants from my phone on a regular basis. If a business's information doesn't show up in one of these directories I won't even know they exist.

2. Get a blog. One of the few things a mobile browser doesn't ruin is text. The majority or Wordpress sites, even basic ones, are relatively easy to navigate on my phone. So if you're not already blogging, here's another reason to do it.

3. Social Media. A number of social media sites are already geared for mobile users (Twitter, Facebook). So take advantage of that. Even if your website isn't iPhone-perfect, you can still stay in front of your clients and customers by being active on one or multiple social media sites.

4. Opt-In Email. If your blog has an email option, or you send out a regular newsletter, you can reach your mobile audience this way as well. If you haven't considered an email option for your blog or some kind of e-newsletter, you might want to!

These are just a few quick ways to make your business accessible to mobile users. I'm sure there are lots more, feel free to add your suggestions!