AT&T’s push into fake 5G has begun and it hasn’t exactly led to the results the carrier was hoping for. Last month, we reported AT&T was going to begin advertising fake 5G on its 4G LTE phones, an endeavor that begun this week. Needless to say, the carrier’s fiercest competitors have responded with some pointed roasts.
In case you are unfamiliar with 5G, it is the next-generation network that carriers have begun to develop that will offer more reliable and faster data speeds. However, the technology has been slow to roll out, and although it’ll be available in 2019 for the first time, customers won’t really experience it until 2020 or possibly 2021 as the technology reaches major cities across the country.
That’s not stopping AT&T from jumping on the hype early with what it is calling 5G E, or 5G Evolution, which is essentially 4G LTE. The carrier this week rolled out an update for a few Android devices that includes a new network icon for 5G E.
But it’s not even 5G, so there’s no reason to call it 5G. Some of the biggest carriers in the U.S. are rightly calling out the misleading tactic.
It began when T-Mobile responded via Twitter to a piece by The Verge that highlighted the absurdity of the situation. “Didn’t realize it was this easy,” read the tweet in jest. Good burn, T-Mobile.
Verizon took a more civilized approach. It cautioned the entire mobile industry not to “over-hype and under-deliver.” It did still poke fun at AT&T, saying, “When we say ‘5G,’ we mean 5G.”
“We will not call our 4G network a 5G network if customers don’t experience a performance or capability upgrade that only 5G can deliver,” said Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technical officer in a statement about the whole ordeal.
Even Sprint couldn’t help itself by taking a shot at AT&T. In a statement to Engadget, Sprint CTO John Saw commented, “AT&T is blatantly misleading consumers—5G E is not real 5G.”
At this point, it’s a head scratching decision on AT&T’s part for not completely abandoning the marketing stunt.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra's Space Zoom camera is amazing and a bit creepy
The Galaxy S20 Ultra supports up to 100X zoom, which Samsung calls Space Zoom, but is it any good? Can a phone really product usable photos at 100x zoom? We've got our Galaxy S20 Ultra already so join us to find out!
Win an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with the Reader's Choice giveaway!
What's the best phone of 2019? Is it the iPhone 11 Pro, Pixel 4 or OnePlus 7T? What about the best laptop, games console, tablet and more? Vote NOW in the Reader's Choice awards and win BIG in time for the holidays!
Here are the best products from IFA 2019!
Here are the products announced at IFA 2019 that were worthy of our Best of IFA 2019 awards. Also featuring MrMobile's single best product at the show!
Solve all of your problems, add the perfect calculator to your life
With the right calculator, everything adds up! Whether you need a basic model or one with more advanced functions, there is a calculator that will meet your functional requirements.