TuneTalk claims to have 8G. Is this a load of hogwash?

You’ve probably heard that 5G is coming but in Malaysia, we have yet to experience the full potential of 4G LTE. Malaysian MVNO TuneTalk has sprung out of nowhere to announce “TuneTalk 8G” at MWC 2016. So what is this 8G TuneTalk is shouting about? Is it a network breakthrough or just a marketing gimmick?

The enabler of Tune Talk 8G is based on a technology by Malaysian-based company called SWAG. That’s short for Super WiFi Anywhere you Go. Their solution is to provide the best and fastest internet connectivity possible from the current 4G LTE networks around you. This sounds similar to carrier aggregation on 4G LTE-Advance but it cuts across different telcos. Imagine surfing mobile internet utilising bandwidth from several 4G connections at the same time.

Obviously, you’ll need a special MiFi-like device and the website showed a compact device that has 2 LAN ports at the back. It looks better than the “Tune Talk 8G” device at the top, which looks like a bulky tumbler. In terms of speed, Tune Talk claims it could deliver up to 160Mbps and an average of 66Mbps during congested peak-hour situations. This was tested around KL Sentral in Malaysia.

To prove its capability, they have uploaded a video speedtest with four 4G LTE connections on Digi, Tune Talk (Celcom), Maxis and U Mobile. We suggest viewing it at full screen at Full HD.

While the idea is great, this is far from “8G speeds”, if there’s one defined in the first place. At 160Mbps, that’s faster than what we could get on LTE-A in Malaysia but it still falls under 4G speeds. Even Qualcomm is making 1Gbps on 4G possible with its latest LTE modem.

For TuneTalk to claim 8G is just a marketing gimmick and it is quite misleading since there’s no explanation of what 8G stands for? 4G + 4G = 8G perhaps? Another question mark would be the cost of utilising 4 different telcos. Tune Talk might be able to strike a deal for bulk data access but we doubt Maxis, Digi and U Mobile would let their competitor utilise their LTE bandwidth for cheap.

According to TuneTalk, the “8G” device will be launched in Malaysia by Q3 this year. So let’s see in 6 months time. What do you think? Leave your thoughts down below in the comments.