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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10 2019, @02:54AM
No, those stories are just a search away. No matter how correct they are, one thing they claim is true: we will not get faster Internet over 5G. In addition, millimeter wave technology is very power-hungry. Your battery life will suffer from that. Perhaps some people like to watch movies on a beach; my phone has only 1.5 Mbps of wireless data[*], and that's plenty when I'm in the street. At home I have as much as my cable modem can provide over 802.11a - in other words, quite enough.
* That plan was chosen by me, knowing that it will be enough. When I am away from home/work, I'm usually driving from one place with Wi-Fi to another place with Wi-Fi, thus my bitrate needs are small - for email, Skype, and occasional Lyft.
BTW, how will 5G work inside of a moving car? Probably it won't, as handoffs will be occuring every second. But millimeter waves will probably reflect from the glass, and the phone will have to drop to lower bands, just as it is now. What's then 5G is good for?