Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
AT&T misleads customers by updating phones with fake 5G icon
AT&T has updated three smartphones from Samsung and LG to make them show 5G connectivity logos, even though none of them are capable of connecting to 5G networks.
Now, when the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, LG V30, or LG V40 are connected to portions of AT&T's LTE network that have received some speed-boosting updates, they'll show an icon that says "5G E" instead of "LTE."
That "E" in the "5G" logo is supposed to tip you off that this isn't real 5G — just some marketing nonsense. But there's no way of knowing that just from looking at the logo. The "E" is smaller than the rest of the icon. And even if you do learn that "5G E" stands for "5G Evolution," it isn't immediately clear what that means.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:14PM
AT&T has a history of fake marketing. The coverage map scam. The "biggest coverage study"(fine print: Excluding crowdsouring) and other shams to try to show their coverage being anywhere near Verizon's coverage. Why not just fake 5G too? Glad I dropped them years ago.