The promise of T-Mobile 4G. Just about that: a promise

This post should have been written two months ago when, of necessity, not having other choice and simply because I like T-Mobile, I decided to purchase the services of T-Mobile broadband. The customer service representative in the store was very helpful and knew her lines, but she did not give me straight answers to whether this wireless broadband service was in fact 4G-capable, that is, fourth generation wireless. Not at the moment of signing a 2-year contract and not a month later when I brought up, once again, the issue of slowness and not being able to watch YouTube videos and video news clips without a hiccup. Even with the best broadband modem or "laptop stick", in their parlance, the T-Mobile® Rocket 2.0 4G Laptop Stick, I get ridiculous download speeds, how about 6 kilobytes or maximum 30 kilobytes per second? (!), and that's in Manhattan, not in the middle of nowhere,  not to mention that watching an online video is frankly frustrating because the signal keeps reloading (20%...30%...). This post was motivated by reading an article at ZDNet where the authors state that "T-Mobile is actually fourth among the big four in the US when it comes to maximum network speeds, and explain how T-Mobile and AT & T "conjured 4G networks out of thin air." There, they have an explanation for what I perceived from the very beginning. Oh, and if you go to a store of T-Mobile or AT&T and even Verizon, they invariably, and by coincidence (?) don't have a live demo of the 4G capabilities, go figure. The answer, however, is pretty simple: they don't have much to show for it. Period. Not in my experience.