Everything Labeled 5G Is the Real 5G
This is a complicated issue, made even more complicated by marketing. Remember when we mentioned that 5G is a bundle of new technologies combined with more space on the radio spectrum? Well, telecom service providers aren’t upgrading to all of those technologies at once. Instead, they are incorporating them here and there as able. In fact, the major providers can – and are – using their 4G towers to utilize limited aspects of 5G as they create infrastructure for additional steps, so when a company says it offers “5G” there probably aren’t many new towers going up at all…at least, not yet.
Then there’s the very problematic marketing. Everyone wants to be the first to say they are offering 5G to get more customers. Whether it’s Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or whoever, they are using the smallest slivers of 5G technology to claim they’re offering all-new technology and services. AT&T is even worse, outright representing 4G technology as 5G to the point where the National Advertising Review Board recommended they stop misleading customers, something AT&T refused to do.
So basically, the upgrade to full 5G technology is going to take a couple years of infrastructure work, no matter what the telecom companies say. In the meantime, new 5G benefits will roll out in phases as they are ready.