AT&T Will Put a Fake 5G Logo On Its 4G LTE Phones (theverge.com) 81
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: AT&T customers will start to see a 5G logo appear in the corner of their smartphone next year -- not because they're using a 5G phone connected to a 5G network, but because AT&T is going to start pretending its most advanced 4G LTE tech is 5G. According to FierceWireless, AT&T will display an icon reading "5G E" on newer phones that are connected to LTE in markets where the carrier has deployed a handful of speed boosting -- but still definitively 4G -- technologies. The "E," displayed smaller than the rest of the logo, refers to "5G Evolution," the carrier's term for networks that aren't quite 5G but are still faster than traditional LTE. AT&T pulled the same stunt during the transition to LTE. "The company rolled out a speed-boosting 3G tech called HSPA+, then got all of its phone partners -- even Apple -- to show a '4G' logo when on that kind of connection," reports The Verge.
Surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we all know now what AT&T is capable of. Don't we?
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Yep. The same crap again. Now every country will have a different naming for technologies.
4G+ was too true. If marketing folks don't lie, they're not doing their job.
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Wasn't Verizon Wireless (at the time still partially owned by Vodaphone, now they're wholly owned by Verizon) the first to pull that stunt? Verizon Wireless 4G was 3G+ because the standard wasn't finished yet and they fell far short of the standard (especially on data), so when they met the standard they rebranded 4G as "4GLTE."
Not that I'm complaining - waiting for any real 5G here. Please give me an alternative to Comcast, the local government has prevented anyone from running fiber in the neighborhood fo
E, is even more than anyone that you adore (Score:5, Funny)
The "E," displayed smaller than the rest of the logo, refers to "5G Evolution," ...
I think it actually means "Eventually" - kind of like how "Forever" in "Duke Nukem Forever" actually meant the release schedule.
explains a hell of a lot, actually... (Score:1)
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ATT bringing you yesterdays (Score:4, Interesting)
Just my 2 cents
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Just my 2 cents ;)
It's going to cost you a lot more than 2 cents.
Is this worth the inevitable class action lawsuit? (Score:2)
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Well there are some pretty distinct generations, which each had different driving goals and had incompatible radio layers.
1G: analog mobile phones.
2G: digital mobile phones, primerally voice but with some data services.
3G: packet data as a design driver but circuit-switched services still a major part of the offerting.
4G: everything is packet data, voice and text are services that run on top of (high-priority) data service.
5G: move to higher frequency shorter distance radio to massively increase data capaci
way togo AT&T! (Score:1)
This phone is 5G ready!
5G before it arrives but pnly if you cN wack the wompu...
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Re:Is this worth the inevitable class action lawsu (Score:5, Informative)
Lawsuits over something like this seem unlikely, given how all this started several years ago and the lack of suits then.
You may recall that in 2012-ish "4G" was all the rage. Sprint looked at its dumpster fire of a network roadmap and decided that, because it was nowhere near a LTE rollout, it had to stay in the marketing game. So it squinted at the 3GPP "4G standard" and said "since it specifies 10 Mbps speed, and our WiMax network could get 10 Mbps on a clear day if you squint at it right, we will now say we have the first '4G' network!" T-Mobile felt the need to respond, so they looked at their HSPA+ network and said, "well if Sprint's WiMax network counts as '4G' by that standard, then our network is 4G too." AT&T sadly succumbed to the peer pressure and branded HSPA+ as 4G as well, which was especially unfortunate given that they actually had a "real 4G" LTE rollout on the horizon (they were second after Verizon in the US).
Nobody ever successfully sued Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T over any of those shenanigans, so I doubt there will be much more luck this time around.
Re: Is this worth the inevitable class action laws (Score:2)
As if 4G meant something. What's so hard on calling the technology or the speed in Mbps?
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Sprint sucked, but WiMax WAS "4G", every bit as much as American LTE was "4G".
The main reason why Sprint's Wimax was inferior to Verizon's first stab at LTE was because of the frequency band it ran in. The latest iteration of LTE is better than Wimax was, but the FIRST generation of LTE was barely any different (in terms of bare-metal radio modulation) than Wimax (slightly more efficient encoding to make better use of RF energy, but it was more of a minor tweak than anything). If Sprint's Wimax had run at 7
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The class could be non-current ATT customers that are considering ATT.
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There's one remaining safety... the FTC itself still has the power to sue any company on behalf of customers over violations of the FTC Act and bring them to court over false advertising, etc.
Regardless of any arbitration clauses or class-actino waivers.
Scam, time to sue (Score:1)
Seriously you don't get to claim that your 4G phones are 5G just because it's "faster" than regular 4G. It should be 4G E.
Re: Scam, time to sue (Score:1)
Fun fact: 4G and 5G dont exist, they are just a byproduct of bad numbering from 2G and 3G.
5G E... (Score:2)
The tell (Score:2)
Cell phone infrastructure that is for your entire village is 4G.
Distance and new investment is the tell.
You'll take whatever we give you, and like it. (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you gonna do about it? We got our guy in in the FCC and White House. Kick rocks and pay your bill.
Obligatory Dilbert (Score:4, Funny)
https://dilbert.com/strip/2011... [dilbert.com]
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Of course what happens after 9G? Do we go to 10G or AG? And if we do go to AG will someone come out with AU? I mean these are just marketing terms at this point aren't they?
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I was gonna say, they should just skip the bandwagon and start calling their stuff 6G
No. No, no. Not 6G. 7G. Nobody's coming out with 6G. Who wants 6G?
7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man. That's the number.
7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
So begins the arms race (Score:5, Funny)
Re: So begins the arms race (Score:1)
I do tend to agree i think my first 5g phone accessory will need to be a really big muffler tip. Ill also make sure the case has a gigantic downforce wing too. Heard that 5g is gonna be fast and loud!
Fucking called it the last article (Score:1)
I knew they would do this shit.
5g my hairy ass. The proper 5g everyone has been talking about isn't feasible with current tech, it's a horrible mess years away from proper deployment. I don't think anyone even has proper real-world tests running for it yet.
This just proves it. Their shitty 5g is just going to be boosted 4g.
Isn't "nG" originally just a marketing term. (Score:5, Informative)
I was under the impression that
- "nG" was originally just an arbitrary marketing term, approximating "Our company's Nth generation of equipment, better than our (n-1)G service".
- As of 5G there IS a regulatory mandate from the ITU, but it's just for a set of minimal performance metrics, not a particular way to achieve them.
- So "5G" is not a STANDARD, but applies to a NUMBER of standards by which the which a carrier may chose to meet the required performance level. In particular;
--it does NOT guarantee interoperability with another carrier's "5G" branded offering
--If a carrier can achieve the required performance by appropriately configuring their 4G equipment (such as LTE and/or WiMax boxen) and the number of subscribers served by them, they are free to call it "5G".
Yes, "nG" is just a marketing term. (Score:3)
I was under the impression that - "nG" was originally just an arbitrary marketing term, approximating "Our company's Nth generation of equipment, better than our (n-1)G service".
Correct. The nG is, conveniently, comparable to WiFi versions and names. Unsurprisingly, after 3G became well known, it was decided that since a year or so had gone by, 4G needed to come into existence. This is closely related to marketing, of course.. So, because mobile phone "G" wasn't something that was integrated into mobile phone towers annually like the next year of fashion, carriers decided to use a 4, then some used the acronym LTE, etc.
When a large number of antennas are upgraded, that must also i
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--If a carrier can achieve the required performance
They won't. There's an order of magnitude difference. Just like there was a huge frigging difference between HSDPA+ and LTE.
It's false and fraudulent marketing, nothing more. And AT&T will get away with it because in America suing a mega corporation is pointless, some stupid judge will rule that 5G(tinye) could never be confused with 5G, and no one will uphold marketing rules.
Not the first time (Score:2)
did AT&T actually HAVE HSPA+? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I was pissed when T-Mobile decided to go "all LTE" just for the sake of a marketing bullet point. HSPA+ might not be LTE, but in urban areas with dense tower deployment, HSPA+ is technically SUPERIOR to LTE (at least, LTE at the time it was deployed to replace HSPA+), especially if you're in a moving vehicle.
Unlike LTE, HSPA+ allows your phone to connect to MULTIPLE different towers & split your data between them (basically, like using a shotgun modem with PPP multilink). That comes in handy if you're in an area with dense tower deployment and in a fast-moving vehicle (like high-speed rail, or a car doing 80mph on a freeway) -- the phone can metaphorically swing like a monkey from tower/branch to tower/branch, always keeping one metaphorical hand on a tower/branch while the other reaches for the next so it's never COMPLETELY offline and disconnected. In contrast, LTE has "hard" disconnects -- the phone connects to exactly one tower at a time, and when it disconnects it has no data connectivity (or IP address) AT ALL until it establishes its next connection to a different tower.
This also means that HSPA+ can be a lot more aggressive about hunting for better connectivity... it can hedge its bets by remaining connected to its "best" known tower, while aggressively connecting around in search of a better one. In contrast, LTE tends to hang on until it literally can't sustain a connection at all, even if there's a "better" tower it COULD use instead... in order to "try out" that tower, it has to break its connection and do a hard switch to the new one... and if it's TOO aggressive about hunting for a better tower, you can end up with the kind of thrashing Sprint phones had back in the wimax era (if you were in an area where two wimax towers were in view, but BOTH were marginal, Sprint phones would thrash back and forth between them every few seconds... made worse by the fact that those phones ALSO shared components between wimax and wifi, so you couldn't use both simultaneously.)
In rural areas (and large parts of suburbia), it's kind of academic because there's probably only one tower in view at a time ANYWAY... but in areas with the tower density to support it properly, HSPA+ is arguably a step UP from LTE.
That said... I don't think AT&T ever actually HAD HSPA+. I know AT&T had HSDPA, and I'm pretty sure they were in the process of deploying HSUPA at some point, but AFAIK, AT&T quit upgrading 3G at some point before HSPA+ and decided to focus entirely on LTE... then started attacking T-Mobile for not being "all LTE".
Personally, if I'd been in charge at T-Mobile, I would have hit back hard at AT&T and run ads calling them "LTE Lemmings" for blindly chasing after buzzwords instead of pure technical merit. I would have shown happy T-Mobile customers on Acela (or in cars driving side by side on an open freeway) enjoying uninterrupted connectivity while frustrated AT&T and Verizon customers kept having their Facetime chats glitch and break up every couple of minutes when the phones moved too far from their past tower & had a second or two of network disruption while connecting to the next tower. Or worse, having their banking and VPN apps kicking them offline every few minutes because it detected an IP address change (go search old messages at XDA-developers.com & you can read about how people used to have to lock their phone to 3G to use it with a VPN or banking app when riding on Acela, because otherwise the IP address would keep changing every few minutes & they'd get logged out automatically).
IMHO, LTE was actually a technological step backwards. Most of the "benefits" people ascribe to "LTE" over HSPA+ have nothing to do with "4G", and EVERYTHING to do with "carriers used their best new frequency bands to deploy it". Had HSPA+ been deployed at 600 & 700MHz, with the same amount of fiber backhaul as LTE, the difference between HSPA+ and LTE would have been mostly an academic footnote. LTE does make some improvements to the way voi
Re:did AT&T actually HAVE HSPA+? (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit:
You sound like a Qualcomm shill trying to badmouth the superior technology that won out in the end.
Re: did AT&T actually HAVE HSPA+? (Score:2)
LTE might be more efficient, but HSPA+ still wins by pure brute force when you're in a moving vehicle speeding through an area at 80-150mph if you value uninterrupted realtime connectivity.
LTE's single-tower orientation causes other problems, too. After Hurricane Irma, there were a lot of dysfunctional LTE tower sites in Florida for several weeks due to backhaul problems. The problem was, sites with dysfunctional backhaul still acceptet connections. So your phone might connect to a dysfunctional tower &
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LTE might be more efficient, but HSPA+ still wins by pure brute force when you're in a moving vehicle speeding through an area at 80-150mph if you value uninterrupted realtime connectivity.
but in urban areas with dense tower deployment
Look you're swinging wildly between arbitrary and incoherent arguments all the while ignoring that your provider has a coverage problem and blaming the technology instead. Don't do that.
Re: did AT&T actually HAVE HSPA+? (Score:2)
My point is that every US provider HAS coverage that's deficient in some respect.
LTE was developed for neat, orderly, well-planned & properly-executed networks. The harsh reality is, US networks are more variable in quality & a lot more adhoc.
In messy networks, CDMA (including HSPA+) is more robust & resilient, and tolerates a greater amount of chaos without breaking down.
That robustness comes at a price -- more power consumption and less efficient spectral efficiency. In places like Scandinavia
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My point is that every US provider HAS coverage that's deficient in some respect.
Nope. Your point was a hit piece on the technology all the while completely ignoring the coverage and capabilities set up by the provider. By the way it's not the job of the air interface to fix problems on the base. That load control and quality of service is a function of the base stations themselves and works just fine for LTE when setup correctly.
In messy networks, CDMA (including HSPA+) is more robust & resilient, and tolerates a greater amount of chaos without breaking down.
HSPA is the cause of chaos and mess. It's the cause of backhaul problems and oversubscribed towers struggling to send out data. LTE handles the air interfaces
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OK, here are some real-world experiences.
Last weekend, I was at Sawgrass Mills (a large outlet mall at the western edge of Fort Lauderdale). I have a Nexus 6P and use AT&T. According to the signal strength icon, I had perfect RF signal quality... and couldn't even ping 8.8.8.8 or access Google. I changed the settings to force 3G, and instantly everything worked perfectly.
This afternoon, I was at Pembroke Lakes Mall (in Pembroke Pines, southwestern Fort Lauderdale area). Same story. With LTE enabled, I s
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I can anecdote as well. I have a Galaxy S8 on Telstra 4GX LTE, and I was in the basement foodhall of a busy department store last Friday. I only had one bar of signal, and I could check my e-mail, and make a crystal-clear VoLTE call to my wife with no interruptions/dropouts. There were some teething issues with Telstra's LTE network back when they started rolling it out (around 2014 IIRC), but for the last two years or so it's worked better than their 3G/Next-G network ever did. The problem is shitty ro
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I would have hit back hard at AT&T and run ads calling them "LTE Lemmings"
Why because you have one tiny little use case on a single metric that happens to be better for you while being worse for everyone else (tower congestion was a bigger problem with HSDPA+ for precisely this reason).
You're complaining about coverage, not a technology. LTE is superior to HSDPA+ in nearly every way and the sensible users are glad to see the back of it. If you have problems with your connection then maybe you should be blaming the modem in your phone or the carrier not providing the coverage requ
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HSPA+ is far inferior to LTE in the most important aspect .. capacity.
e.g. with a pretty standard 5mhz channel, HSPA will spit out 14.4mb/s. That same channel in LTE is ~25-30mb/s, with a lot of other factors like lower latency, more resource blocks and more users able to use that resource being among them, to say nothing of 256QAM, MIMO, beamforming, carrier aggregation that only really applies to LTE.
The term you are looking for on multiple towers is called soft handoff, and yes HSPA has soft handoff.
Marketing is useless (Score:2)
When you keep lying to us.
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It is possible to manipulate people's emotions and encourage them to buy a product without lying about it.
The did the same thing when 4G was starting (Score:2)
I'm beginning to wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
if there is any truth left in anything.
It seems everything claimed these days comes with a side of lies and / or deception.
Sometimes the lies are exposed quickly, others years later but, it seems damn near everything is ( at least partially ) a lie :|
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And the FTC Does Nothing (Score:2)
Real 5G phones are easy to spot (Score:3)
It won't work. Real 5G phones are easy to spot. They're thicker, heavier, and the battery won't last a day.
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A description of every phone with the first generation of their new modem, ever.