At that time, literally every single national carrier in the US had a technology they marketed as "4G" that didn't meet the IMT-Advanced standards. AT&T and T-

At that time, literally every single national carrier in the US had a technology they marketed as "4G" that didn't meet the IMT-Advanced standards. AT&T and T-Mobile both marketed HSPA+ as 4G. IIRC, T-Mobile did it first, and AT&T followed suit. It wasn't just a US thing either, because Canadian carriers also followed our lead and did the same thing. Sprint marketed WiMax as 4G. They were the first to market anything as 4G in the US. Verizon marketed the original version of LTE as 4G. While LTE-Advanced meets the IMT-Advanced spec, original LTE doesn't. And then as Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile all rolled out their LTE networks, they marketed them as "4G LTE" even though they too were using original LTE and not LTE-Advanced.