Do you understand 4G? I don't.

Weird photo.

Luckily for us, Walter Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's astute technology columnist, does. Here's his take.

AT&T claims "The nation's largest 4G network," and T-Mobile says it has "America's largest 4G network." Verizon Wireless boasts "America's fastest 4G network," and Sprint says it had the first 4G network, Mossberg notes.

Yet the technology used by T-Mobile, and mostly comprising AT&T's 4G network, isn't considered "real" 4G at all by some critics, and the one used by Sprint has proven to be a dead end and is being abandoned. The flavor being used by Verizon is now being adopted by its rivals, but won't be interoperable among them.

Got that? Let's continue.

4G is the fourth and latest generation technology for data access over cellular networks. It's faster and can give networks more capacity than the 3G networks still on most phones. There's a technical definition, set by a United Nations agency in Europe, and a marketing definition, which is looser, but more relevant to most consumers. It's mostly for people with smartphones, tablets and laptops who often need fast data speeds for Web browsing, app use and email when they're out of the range of Wi-Fi networks.

Okay, we're going to get technical here, so you might want to cover your eyes as you read.

LTE, which stands for "Long Term Evolution," is the fastest, most consistent variety of 4G, and the one most technical experts feel hews most closely to the technical standard set by the U.N. In the U.S., it has primarily been deployed by Verizon, which offers it in over 200 markets. AT&T has begun deploying it, offering LTE in 28 markets so far. Sprint and T-Mobile are pivoting to LTE, though they have no cities covered by it yet. 

Sprint uses a technology called WiMax. T-Mobile and AT&T deployed a technology called HSPA+, a faster version of 3G that they relabeled as 4G, and which many technical critics regard as a "faux 4G." Sprint will begin switching to LTE later this year, and T-Mobile in 2013.

Got that? So, you ask, what?

Although it is wireless, LTE is often faster than most Americans' wired home Internet service. According to Akamai, a large Internet company, the average broadband speed in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2011 was a mere 6.1 mbps.

Wi-Fi is usually a wireless broadcast of a wired Internet service, so, if the average U.S. broadband speed is 6.1 mbps, that's around what the average Wi-Fi speed is. But, in public places, the shared Wi-Fi is often much, much slower than LTE.

So who has the biggest 4G network in the U.S.?

Even if you accept all the carriers' definitions of 4G, it's hard to tell. Carriers measure the size of their networks differently—sometimes by the number of people to whom it is theoretically available, and sometimes by the number of cities and markets, which can be defined differently. Verizon has the largest LTE network. Both AT&T and T-Mobile claim the biggest 4G network, but the first has only a limited LTE deployment and the second has none.

There you go, boys and girls. I have solved this problem by sticking with 3G, which I don't understand, and which provides all the juice I need, since I don't understand how to use my smartphone anyway.