Your AT&T Phone Does Not Have 5G Now

A couple of weeks ago, AT&T confirmed that it would soon update a number of its phones to show a “5G E” logo in place of the 4G LTE logo when those phones were connected to specific network towers. We mocked them for it then and will continue to do so, but wanted to let you know that the scam change has now begun. AT&T is now updating phones to show a “5G E” logo.

Your phone does not have 5G now. It doesn’t. It still has 4G LTE, AT&T just likes misleading its customers into believing they are now getting more. And sure, the 5G E logo stands for 5G Evolution, which is the name for a bunch of tower upgrades that AT&T has completed across the nation that should (in theory) give you faster speeds and a better connection. That connection is still 4G LTE, though. It has nothing to do with 5G.

AT&T appears to be starting with the Galaxy S8 Active for “5G E” logo enabling. A support page detailing the update says that a January 4 update brings the following:

“5G Evolution indicator support added and December 1, 2018 Security Patch Level.”

We don’t know which phones are next, but a good guess would be all of the rest of the Samsung Galaxy line, like the Galaxy S8 and S8+, since they are very similar to this S8 Active. Really, though, any major phone from the past two years should be able to connect to a 5G Evolution tower and will probably get the logo change.

One last time, so we are clear – the “5G E” logo on your phone does not mean you have 5G.