Opensignal Report Finds AT&T’s Made-Up ‘5G E’ Service Is Slower Than 4G Service From T-Mobile and Verizon ⇥ opensignal.com

Ian Fogg of Opensignal:

Some AT&T users in the U.S. have recently seen “5G E” appear on the status bar of their existing smartphones, replacing 4G. This move has sparked controversy because AT&T is using updated 4G network technologies to connect these smartphone users, not the new 5G standard.

AT&T describes its 5G E service as follows, “5G Evolution is our first step on the road to 5G. We’re starting by enabling faster speeds on our existing LTE network—up to 2x faster than standard LTE.”

[…]

Analyzing Opensignal’s data shows that AT&T users with 5G E-capable smartphones receive a better experience than AT&T users with less capable smartphone models, for example those with an LTE Category below 16. But AT&T users with a 5G E-capable smartphone receive similar speeds to users on other carriers with the same smartphone models that AT&T calls 5G E. The 5G E speeds which AT&T users experience are very much typical 4G speeds and not the step-change improvement which 5G promises.

It’s almost impressive how shameless AT&T is in its false advertisement. This is unquestionably deceptive.

Also, I get that AT&T is probably still one of the biggest iPhone carriers in the United States — if not the world — but it’s frustrating to see them allow this bullshit. Perhaps it’s a contractual obligation, but they shouldn’t allow AT&T to mislead their users.