4G phones
Need 4G phone? Here you will find a handy overview of available phone with 4G, sometimes called LTE. You can also check here whether your phone is suitable for 4G. You can immediately see if it is available and you can easily compare prices, possibly with a subscription.
4G is a technology that allows fast mobile Internet on the go. It is already the fourth generation mobile telecommunications standard, succeeding 3G. 4G is also called Long Term Evolution, or LTE for short.
To use 4G, you not only need to have a cell phone that supports 4G, you will also need to have a corresponding subscription or prepaid connection. Furthermore, you must be in the 4G coverage area; in other words, there must be coverage. By now, almost all Dutch providers have nationwide 4G coverage although there are still areas with reduced coverage, so-called blindspots or grey spots. At home, you usually connect to your own WiFi network and no data will be sent via the 4G network.
4G speed
4G has a theoretical maximum download speed of 1000 Mbit/s and an upload of 500 Mbit/s. Those speeds will not be achieved in practice, the average speed is more like 50 Mbit/s. However, this is many times faster than 3G (aka UMTS). Directly testing how fast your current connection is can be done on websites such as speedtest.net.
Bands
4G works with so-called bands, each with its own frequency. A 4G phone does not have to support every band. Because providers work with their own bands, it is worth paying attention to see if your future mobile can handle your provider's 4G network. Most 4G phones available in stores here will handle the bands applicable here effortlessly, some import models will not. For example, some Xiaomi phones will not work on our 4G networks. We try to list the supported 4G bands in the specifications of each added phone.
4G in the Netherlands
| Provider | Bands |
|---|---|
| KPN | 1, 3, 7, 20 and 38 |
| Odido | 1, 3, 7, 8, 20 and 38 |
| Vodafone | 1, 3, 7, 20 and 28 |
Belgium
| Provider | Ties |
|---|---|
| Base | 3 and 20 |
| Orange | 3 and 7 |
| Proximus | 3, 7 and 20 |
Frequencies
Each band works with its own frequency. Exactly which ones they are is shown in the table below. Sometimes manufacturers give information about supported frequencies instead of bands. With the information below you can look up exactly which band is meant. We have limited ourselves to the frequencies used in Europe.
| Band | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2100 MHz |
| 3 | 1800 MHz |
| 7 | 2600 MHz |
| 8 | 900 MHz |
| 20 | 800 MHz |
| 28 | 700 MHz |
| 31 | 450 MHz |
| 38 | 2600 MHz |
| 40 | 3500 MHz |
4G categories
Not every 4G phone is the same speed. That's because the 4G standard has several categories. Each category has a number with its own maximum download and upload speed. Usually, the higher the number, the faster. For example, LTE Cat3 has a maximum speed of 100 Mbit/s, Cat4 150 Mbit/s, Cat6 300 Mbit/s and Cat9 450 Mbit/s. We try to include the LTE category with each added phone as well. You can find those under the specifications.
4G+
Technology does not stand still and in the meantime, people are hard at work on the successor(s) to 4G. In the meantime, providers are trying out handy tricks to further increase the speed of 4G. One example is the bundling of multiple frequencies, also known as Carrier Aggregation. This term is now known in the market as 4G+ or "4G accelerator," but the official term is LTE Advanced. The maximum 4G+ speed that providers are currently touting is 300 Mbit/s. If you want to use 4G+ or LTE Advanced, both your provider and your mobile will have to support it. In addition, you will need to have a subscription on which 4G+ is activated. You can recognize if your mobile phone supports 4G+ or LTE Advanced by checking if it supports at least LTE Cat6 or higher. If yes then your mobile is suitable for it.
