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Comment by sushicalculus | Hacker News Reader

I have an iPhone11. My phone says it connects to 5G already, so I’m actually confused by this launch. Why would iOS tell me I’m connected to 5G? I’ll be honest that I’m unfamiliar with this space

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5Ge is a marketing term AT&T invented as a rebrand of 4G LTE. It isn't 5G, but it's probably faster than real 5G for now.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/atts-...

I got stuck trying to explain (without being the annoying "well, actually" guy) why my SO's phone wasn't screwed up when switching from ATT to a different carrier.

Because on the old SIM it said 5G dammit! Now it only says 4G so how is that not slower??

Apple deserves to be shamed for this one, as they implemented a feature that essentially allows carriers to lie and display whatever network technology icon they want, instead of displaying the true status as reported by the network interface.

This is a part of the standard, nothing really Apple can do about it.

Source? It's the first time I hear that carriers are able to override the network technology/protocol logo. As far as I know the whole "carrier profile" thing (which is what allows carriers to do this, among other things like arbitrarily restrict tethering, etc) is Apple-specific.

No the same capacities exist,though perhaps not under the same name, on Android; my S10+ dutifully switched from reporting 4G LTE to 5Ge when AT&T decided on that lie.

Android manufacturers are even worse when it comes to this as they let carriers customize the firmware completely (which then interferes with updates) and should also be shamed. This doesn't however say that this is some kind of standard; it's just OS manufacturers being in bed with carriers and doing them favors.

I remember this rolled out with an update to iOS, so it’s not purely carrier-specific. Apple changed something in the operating system to allow it.

AT&T defines LTE with better back haul as “5G”. It’s BS.

Telecom companies renamed some 4G networks 5G because they technically fall within the standard.

Which is silly because even most 4G networks (LTE) don’t technically fall within the original standard of 4G. ITU actually lowered the standard of 4G to meet the limitations of LTE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)).

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