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AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones
- qyz721 8y agoThis is the kind of thing users could have control over if they use their own operating system, correct? Are custom ROMs like LineageOS configured to check for this kind of thing?
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoReminds me of a Subaru Forester I owned. It had a badge 'pzev' which apparently meant 'partial zero-emissions vehicle'. Which meant what? not zero emissions certainly. It was a regular gas car.
- _Schizotypy 8y agoyea but there are 0 emissions when it's off
- lemoncucumber 8y agoYeah I have a Subaru too and I've always thought that was silly. In their defense though, it's not just something they made up for marketing. Rather, it's a term for a silly thing California allows automakers to do to get around the requirement of selling actual zero-emissions vehicles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_zero-emissions_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_zero-emissions_vehicle
- pasbesoin 8y agoThis is akin to what I was thinking, in response to the grandparent's "This means what?" In California and like places, does it get you into the car pool / hybrid/ electric / bus lane? Is that part of why they colored it green -- so it looks like / is apparent that you qualify? P.S. Reading the Wikipedia link, I find the answer to my question: No. However, the warranty extension requirements look good to me -- having an older Subaru whose evaporative emmissions control system started to go wonky a bit after the 10 year mark. Something that can be bugger all difficult and expensive to diagnose and fix.
- mikeash 8y agoIt’s a bit of a silly term but what it describes seems like a sensible thing. It’s meaningless if you’re only worried about CO2 but it’s significant when considering pollution that affects air quality.
- lemoncucumber 8y agoRight, I guess I’m just way more worried about CO2 than about smog.
- llampx 8y agoWhy? Even the EU is moving away from emphasizing CO2 over particulate emissions.
- lemoncucumber 8y agoBecause if we don’t dramatically cut our CO2 emissions quickly we’re irreversibly fucked? And part of that means moving away from ICE vehicles carrying a single person.
- mikeash 8y agoThat’s because efforts to improve air quality have been so successful.
- DannyBee 8y agoWell, i mean, it's also silly in that it only considers tailpipe emissions. PZEV's are already required to have zero evaporative emissions, and besides SULEV tailpipe standards, also be cleaner than 90% of cars of the current model year ZEV's are required to have zero tailpipe emissions, and be cleaner than 98% of cars in the current model year. So ZEV's actually allow forms of emission that the PZEV may not. As long as it isn't an exhaust gas and one of the criteria exhaust gases.
- mc32 8y agoThe funniest thing about it is that “zero” and “partial” are at odds with each other. Whoever decided to juxtapose those terms is genius.
- DannyBee 8y agoActually, PZEV makes sense if you know what it refers to. PZEV's have zero evaporative emissions, and "super ultra low" tailpipe emissions That's what the "partially zero" means - they have zero evaporative emissions.
- schiffern 8y ago>That's what the "partially zero" means - they have zero evaporative emissions. Except it doesn't mean "partial zero." Instead, it refers to a "partial ZEV" (ie a partial vehicle). The argument is that having a greater number of lower-emission vehicles[1] on the road has the same effect on air pollution as having a smaller number of zero-emission vehicles. So if those vehicles count as a partial ZEVs (for the purposes of the CARB ZEV Mandate), the same overall policy effect would be achieved. [1] as you point out, legally they defined this as meeting the EPA SULEV emission requirements, plus having zero evaporative emissions
- calcifer 8y agoThat's just marketing bullshit. Like partially zero calorie cake. You know, it has zero calories, except for the parts of it that doesn't.
- cowsandmilk 8y agoIt had less to do with marketing and more to do with negotiations with California's Air Resources Board. The category was created as a stepping stone towards mandated zero emission vehicles.
- DannyBee 8y agoErr, no. It's quite literally not. Your example is about measuring one thing. The standard does not measure one thing. It would be like calling it "partially zero cake" because it has zero sugar but some fat. Also note that ZEV's do not take into account any of the emissions related to production of the fuel/electricity they use - that is outside the standard. So they may have more net emissions, they may have less.
- calibas 8y agoAt least that's more honest than what they call "lead-free pipes".
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolutio..., which points to this.
- Aardwolf 8y agoIt's about better than 4G but not real 5G, so why not 4½G or something like that...
- petepete 8y agoMy phone already displays 4G+ for this. It's just classic marketing aka lying.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago"4.5G" is in fact what it's called by engineers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced_Pro
- DannyBee 8y agoThey've done this kind of ploy forever. They also require that the strength bars display the highest reception of any type of service it can receive, regardless if that is what it is using right now. So it may display 4 bars and LTE but it's really 4 bars for GSM service, despite using LTE atm. They do this because it works when it comes to reviews and perception. There was a phone that people complained about reception on that was displaying the current service signal strength using a realistic algorithm. Review sites, etc, complained about it compared to other phones despite it being better in actuality. A "fix" was issued. That fix was to use the same signal bar algorithm as everyone else. The same review sites/etc were awash with how much better everyone's reception was and gladness the bug had been fixed.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoI really wish there was something for iPhone that told me my SNR, CRO, Bands etc... and then let me manually configure if I want. As things are going we're basically going to get the equivalent of stoplights for the reception/connectivity UI.
- russdill 8y agoDon't think there's anything like Signal Spy for iPhone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.novvia.fispy&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.novvia.fis...
- novvia 8y agoIs there a need for it on iPhone? I am seriously considering making Signal Spy for iPhone. Bryan
- russdill 8y agoGetting true data on connection type/band/strength etc is really useful, especially if you can log it. I personally don't have an iPhone, but Signal Spy is useful to me on Android.
- acdha 8y agoAT&T also did that with the 4G rollout – my iPhone 4S, which lacked 4G hardware, would display 4G in the status bar, which was especially cruel since they had a huge capacity problem and the average speeds were in the double-digit Kbps range.
- mailslot 8y agoI remember that. HSPA+, which was just fast 3G. It was an improvement from what I remember, but the first time I tasted LTE, I felt ripped off.
- acdha 8y agoYes - definitely more bandwidth, although IIRC the hardware on my 4S didn’t get full advantage, but the latency and time to reestablish a session were so much worse.
- fenwick67 8y agoRemember... we still never got 4G. Speed requirements were set and nobody ever met them, so they just called it 4G-LTE. Nobody should be shocked that this is happening again for 5G and calling 5G-E.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoAT&T did the same with HSPA+ (calling it 4G). Just so they could be one of the first to have 4G out the door. At least from a lying, ahem, marketing perspective.
- kalleboo 8y agoI think the timeline was Sprint first launched WiMAX and called it "4G" (even though it was never any faster than HSDPA) and then T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't look worse with a similarly-specced network so they jumped on the bandwagon.
- weliketocode 8y agoYou know how your 65" tv is actually 64.5 inches? That's called rounding. Now, imagine your TV was advertised as 4Ke when it was actually 1080p. That's called false advertising.
- fenwick67 8y ago4K is actually a great example because DCI 4K (the original "4K" spec) has more pixels than your 4K TV at home (4096 vs 3840).
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoWhich is why the TV's are advertised as UHD but the showreels and demos have 4k on them.
- ksec 8y agoActually both are reasonable and would not be considered as lying. To me at least, since 4K 3840 x 2160 is still double of 1080P, which WAS 2K. Until some idiot decide 1080P is just, 1080P, and 2K now stands for 1440P. You can see this now common in Phone Spec, Gaming and many other resources.
- notatoad 8y agoThere's a reason industries invent new terms instead of using technical ones - 1080 is a measurable number of pixels, if you claim you screen is 1080p or 65", then it can't be a lie. 5G means basically whatever AT&T wants it to mean, just like how the definition of 4G magically and retroactively expanded back to include HSPA phones when verizon or whoever decided it should.
- mynameisvlad 8y ago> 5G means basically whatever AT&T wants it to mean But it doesn't. 5G is an actual term (also known as IMT-2020 because of the release date) as defined by the International Telecommunications Union. 3GPP, who create the mobile standards like GSM/HSPA/LTE, also bases its standards on these IMT requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
- remcob 8y agoI wish we could show real bandwidth, latency and drop rate instead. Even better, have industry agree on minimum values for one bar to four bars of connectivity. And gradually upgrade these requirements over time. All these names just confuse consumers and distract from solving the actual problems. The radio technology stack is mostly an implementation detail.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoHow would you know real bandwidth and latency without running a test? How would you run a test often enough to keep the signal information up-to-date, without impacting data usage and/or battery? It's a great idea, but I think there's a reason we don't do it. RSSI values work well enough.
- aftbit 8y agoMonitor existing radio traffic? Would work at least for bandwidth and drop rate, maybe not latency. If the user isn't using the radios, fall back on a signal-strength based estimate. For bonus points, learn the estimated connectivity based on correlations between previously measured radio metrics and signal strength in the same location. Or just hide the bars and show a binary "go/no-go" symbol to indicate if the phone has a current radio connection. Your phone is always connected to GCM or Apple's equivalent so why not use the health of that connection as an indicator?
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoI find that when my iPhone has one bar, web pages often load much more slowly than when I have five bars. So I find the distinction moderately useful.
- gcbw2 8y agoThis was added to cyanogen as a status bar option. Someone send the patch to android, became a setting one of the irrelevant post-2.3 versions i believe (when most of the code was scratched because they were forking 3 vs 4 to tweak for tablets), and disappeared on actual versions that were pushed to phones as google do with every little feature where the community do manage to overcome the immense hurdle of contributing to android in the first place. open source in android only means "carriers do not have to sign a NDA to see the source in order to send patches for OEM marketing tweaks on the UI" :(
- anigbrowl 8y agoI really don't think the first amendment should apply to corporate communications that are designed to deceive consumers.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago> I really don't think the first amendment should apply to speech that deceives consumers. FTFY. It's not about corporations being evil, per se. Free speech should not be a defense against false advertising, any more than it's a defense against shouting fire in a movie theatre or threatening bodily harm.
- whatshisface 8y agoThis law will be welcome when my team of lobbyists bring the enforcement apparatus to the light, explaining to them how it is really my competitors who are doing all of the lying (especially the ones without lobbyists of their own).
- anigbrowl 8y agoAgreed but I picked corporations as a practical threshold for commercial exaggeration vs trying to police people at flea markets or the like, and also because the whole purpose of incorporation is to shed liability (in most cases) and that the fiscal immunity should come at a price of some freedom.
- whatshisface 8y agoAt one time the FCC policed lies in advertising, although I am not sure what the status on that is now.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThat's FTC's domain.
- grecy 8y agoI worked for a telco who advertised their service as "3G" because theoretically, under ideal conditions, it could hit a speed that was somehow close to what we all think of as "3G". Marketing felt perfectly fine about it, even though it was a blatant lie. They ignored Engineering. I think it's just how the world is now.
- briandear 8y agoThis HN title is pretty clickbaity and doesn’t represent the actual title of the article. The word “fake” appears nowhere in the article. “Fake” is subjective in this context.
- TomMckenny 8y agoI like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. It's a strange comfortable flexibility we have developed around truth. It's almost as if "freedom of speech" means you can massage the truth if it increase sales but god forbid you make a drawing of 90 year old cartoon mouse.
- BillinghamJ 8y agoAs someone not from the US, I just had a quick look on Google images. Such a bizarre concept, kinda amazing how different cultures can end up with such ridiculousness.
- doubleunplussed 8y agoWell, here in Australia we often used to buy credit for our mobile phones, and the credit was measured in "dollars", as opposed to "minutes". Over time things got inflated to the point where you might pay $50 for "$500" of credit. Then you pay for usage at like 30 "cents" per minute. Of course it costs you much less than 30 actual cents per minute in the end, because "dollars" of credit are not dollars at all. I don't know whether this ridiculous concept still exists since phone usage is so cheap now that everything except data is unlimited on the only plans I've been looking at, but it was that way for a while. The US measuring their credit in minutes makes a lot more sense - though having to have credit to receive a text message is pretty bizarre.
- eugeniub 8y agoIt took me longer than I admit to realize that "8=16" or "12=32" meant literally nothing.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. The left is number of rolls in the package, the right is the number of the same brand “standard” rolls it is equivalent to by length (there is accommodating text which makes this explicit); this facilitates price comparisons among packages with different roll sizes.
- mherdeg 8y agoKeith's blog post on this is great : http://blog.keithw.org/2013/07/3g-and-me.html http://blog.keithw.org/2013/07/3g-and-me.html Carriers are uncomfortable about publishing the actual throughput and latency characteristics of their Internet access but are perfectly happy to slap a new "g" on their boxes for marketing purposes.
- rayiner 8y agoThat's not the title of the article, and the premise behind the HN version of the title is at best confused. "5G" is not a specific technology. What you might be thinking of as "5G" is 3GPP's "5G NR" which is a new air interface. But 3GPP will continue to evolve LTE in parallel alongside 5G NR into the "5G" era: https://www.grandmetric.com/2018/10/29/3gpp-release-16-further-lte-and-5g-nr-enhancements https://www.grandmetric.com/2018/10/29/3gpp-release-16-furth.... The reason for that is that the really big benefits of 5G NR come at higher frequency bands which will not always be appropriate for cellular service. At lower frequency bands, evolved versions of LTE will continue to be relevant for the foreseeable future.
- freedomben 8y agoSeeing a lot of comments here that are along the lines of, "this is typical marketing aka lying." Just wanted to say (as a marketing major and former marketing guy) these are most assuredly not the same thing, and I think we make a grave error by normalizing the idea that lying == marketing. Lying is not ok. Marketing is perfectly ok. Let's be careful lest we make excuses like, "Oh they're just marketing"
- monochromatic 8y agoAre there many examples of marketing that are 100% truthful?
- chc 8y agoDo you actually doubt it? Do you think that, like, the Amazon page for a teapot is likely to contain many lies?
- rayiner 8y agoYes! To pick a random example, I typed "teapot" into Amazon and clicked the first link: https://www.amazon.com/Hiware-Removable-Infuser-Stovetop-Blooming/dp/B01LZSA84J/ref=sr_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1545442442&sr=1-5&keywords=teapot https://www.amazon.com/Hiware-Removable-Infuser-Stovetop-Blo... > This teapot is purely hand crafted, made from heat resistant borosilicate glass, Specially designed with non dripping spout and perfect ergonomic handle for sturdy grip Probably not.
- monochromatic 8y agoIf fake reviews count as “marketing” then absolutely I do.
- gammateam 8y agoWhen securities laws are applied, lying/"marketing" becomes securities fraud and jail time with zero protection from the 1st amendment. https://www.law.ua.edu/pubs/lrarticles/Volume%2065/Issue%204/2%20Couture%20903-974.pdf https://www.law.ua.edu/pubs/lrarticles/Volume%2065/Issue%204...
- stagger87 8y agoI'm not sure why I'm struggling to find an answer to this question, but does anyone know if the plan for 5G is to have cell phones transmitting at 28 and 39 GHz with the new sample rates? Or are mm wave freqs primarily for infrastructure? I'd love to read about mm transceivers on UE's if anyone has any information about it.
- wmf 8y agoYes, it will happen. https://www.anandtech.com/show/13106/qualcomm-announces-their-first-5g-mmwave-antenna-module-qtm052-coming-this-year https://www.anandtech.com/show/13106/qualcomm-announces-thei...
- bubblethink 8y agoTangential: I find networking (both wifi and cellular) to be one of the most problematic parts in a smartphone. These are quite literally the things that make a smartphone. This may be OS and device specific, but with AOSP on a pixel, these are my common issues: 1) Frequent wifi disconnects 2) Phone shows connected to both wifi and cellular but internet doesn't work 3) Cellular data is supposed to be always on but doesn't work as intended 4) Wifi-Calling drops call if wifi disconnects (which is probably a combination of 1 and 3). 4) Phone prefers shitty wifi (for eg. while driving by near an AP) over cellular. Does everyone have some variation of these problems ? Have iphones solved these for good ?
- gcbw2 8y agothis do not sell. A while ago phones where purchased on internal memory size (and a fixed $100 upgrade steps for some reason). Until recently purchase decision was based on screen size, bigger the better. Now they are decided on a notch on the screen apparently. Absolutely nobody buying phones care about the items you listed, unfortunately.
- callalex 8y agoThey absolutely do, it’s just impossible to quantify. When the WiFi hardware is garbage on a phone non-technical people just call it “slow/buggy/glitchy” without really being able to identify why.
- apopspa 8y agoSome manufacturers have things like "WiFi+" (Huawei) which performs regular speed tests and saves regular location data to estimate the end-user speeds. You can also turn on some developer settings; e.g. mobile data always on (even with WiFi turned on). Can't say if Apple got this right.
- kiwijamo 8y agoI’ve largely stopped using WiFi except for my home and work wifi. Seems to solve a lot of my wifi issues as the wifi networks I have access to at home and work locations is very robust. Everywhere else I just use my mobile carrier’s 3G/4G service which is usually much better than wifi. Helps that I have lots of data as part of my plan so I literally never run out of data.
- samstave 8y agoSo, may i place a fake AT&T logo on a Huwai phone?
- gammateam 8y agoI thought the author's avatar was the facepalm emoji at first woulda been fitting
- basicplus2 8y agoTelstra Australia call 3Gpp service 4G and they call 4G 4Gplus.. Its essentially fraud
- quickthrower2 8y agoDisplaying the speed in MBps would be much more useful
- universe_lol 8y agohttps://www.universelol.com/what-are-some-staggering-certainties-about-material-science https://www.universelol.com/what-are-some-staggering-certain... What Are Some Staggering Certainties About Material Science?
- torgian 8y ago5G is practically useless in a way, due to its frequency and how your hand could block the signals too.
- kalleboo 8y agoDifferent carriers/countries are deploying 5G on different frequencies. Some are using lower frequencies similar to the ones currently used by 3G/4G
- torgian 8y agoThat's good to hear, but wouldnt the change in frequency lower the speed of 5g? if it's similar to 3/4G, wouldnt that just make 5G as fast as 4G?
- sampo 8y agoI know AT&T phones (or perhaps all American carriers?) display HSPA+ as 4G, but in Europe the same is known as 3.75G.
- profmonocle 8y agoDefinitely not all US carriers, my 1st-gen Pixel on T-Mobile displays "H+".
- floatboth 8y agoOr "3.5G", but Android without any vendor crap (i.e. LineageOS or any other AOSP based build) doesn't use the "G" above 3G: "H", "H+", "LTE" and "LTE+"
- baby 8y agoI don't understand how these companies can get away with so much. I had to find a plan a month ago, and none of these companies display their prices on their websites. They force you to go to a shop, where people don't want to show you the prices and the different plans either. You're met with aggressive sales people and you end up paying for something that you have no idea if it's fair or not.
- mathattack 8y agoSounds like they are learning marketing from IBM.
- trumped 8y agothey should get sued for this but they won't...
- beastman82 8y agoMarketers lie.
- franciscop 8y agoI remember something similar happening back in the days with totally unrelated tech: - MP3: Can play audio. Marketing and tech play nice together. - MP4: Can play video. Marketing and tech play nice together - MP5: Wait what? Marketing needs "next" iterarion, it doesn't make any sense. It's just MP4 with some random silly feature (depending on the company).
- floatboth 8y agoMP5: is literally a gun :D
- franciscop 8y agoOh this happened back in Spain when I was a teenager, so I had no idea lol
- ksec 8y agoThe one thing I wish would happen now is some carrier have the guts to finally roll out their 5G, or 3GPP Rel 15 in full and call it, 6G. Because their competitor decided to call something 5G which isn't 5G, they have no choice but rename their network as 6G. I hope that is T-Mobile US.
- speedplane 8y agoAT&T is the worst. Nearly a century of bad behavior over and over again.
- godelski 8y agoIf we can define peanut butter, we should be able to define network names. Names mean things after all.
- notSupplied 8y agoDoes a technical definition of 5G even exist? Going from 3 to 4G was mostly about the transition from CDMA to ODFMA with other perks tacked on. This is why even though the marketing department at AT&T called HSPA+ "4G" the engineers knew it really wasn't. What is the equivalent step change for 5G that is as significant as OFDMA, or is 5G is purely a collection of incremental improvements?
- pgnas 8y agoSure, why not, the company that redefined what "unlimited" means is now going to put false advertising on its junk. At any point , is the US Government going step up to the plate and actually do it's job?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- justtopost 8y agoWho charges these people with fraud, and why are they not acting?