Verizon's 'World First' 5G Launch Was A Bit of a Dud

from the underwhelmed dept

We've noted for a while that 5G is being aggressively over-hyped. While it's an important evolutionary step in wireless connectivity, it's far from the revolution hardware vendors and cellular carriers are promising. Verizon, for example, insists that 5G is the "fourth industrial revolution" that will almost miraculously spur the smart cities and smarter cars of tomorrow. While 5G is important (in the sense that faster, more resilient networks are always important), the idea that 5G will fundamentally transform the broken broadband market tends to overshoot the mark.

Under the din of hype, groups like the EFF have repeatedly warned that fixating on the technology obscures the industry's failure to deploy fiber broadband to countless Americans despite billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks. Fiber that's essential in driving 5G outside of major metro markets.

Meanwhile, companies like Verizon continue to overstate not only what 5G can do, but where it's available. A closer look at Verizon's "Home 5G" service (which affixes a 5G antenna to user homes) in cities like Sacramento has found it to be barely available. Last week, Verizon again heralded the "world first" launch of truly mobile 5G service in both Chicago and Minneapolis. Again however reporters who visited the city to cover the launch walked away unimpressed, noting that while speeds were blisteringly fast (upwards of 500 Mbps on the test network), actually getting a steady signal was largely impossible:

"Even carefully positioned a few feet away from the 5G node, the large on-screen icon exclaiming Verizon's 5G network toggled back and forth from 4G to 5G," CNET said. "After two hours, we had run maybe one clean Speedtest.net app side by side with the Galaxy S10 Plus." Samsung's phone is a 4G LTE device.

The Verge said, "coverage is so extremely sparse that, for right now, I'd caution anyone against buying the 5G Moto Mod and paying Verizon an extra $10 every month to receive 5G," even though it found "blazing fast data speeds."

Again, this was a PR network, with little to no actual congestion on it, so it should have performed notably better than this. But the trials highlighted a technology that's clearly not ready for prime time. Only one, unimpressive phone supports these early launches right now (the Motorola Moto Z3), and even then, to actually get the phone to work required an additional $200 "mod" for the device. A mod that contained not just the necessary mmWave antennas needed to get 5G signal, but an additional battery pack to handle the immense battery drain issue phone manufacturers haven't solved yet.

That doesn't sound like much of an industrial revolution. Verizon, for its part, apparently tried to blame phone icons for the patchy availability of its shiny new product:

"When people try and look for coverage, the way the icon works on the phone is different than it works in the past," Mike Haberman, Verizon's vice president of network engineering, told CNBC, noting that the icon that shows a 5G connection only appears when you try to use 5G. So, unlike 4G LTE, right now you don't see the 5G icon even in a coverage area. That will change in a couple of years."

Granted, that just floats over the fact that reviewers couldn't get any 5G signal at all for the lion's share of their testing last week. Verizon appears to have rushed these launches just so it could claim it beat the South Koreans to market, even if that means fielding a product nobody's all-that impressed by. That this might result in consumers associating 5G with empty hype apparently hasn't crossed executives' minds.

Again, some early bleeding edge hiccups aren't unexpected, and these early efforts will likely be a far cry from what we'll see once hardware is more fully cooked and 5G is more fully deployed. But Wall Street analysts like Craig Moffett also told me this week that after crunching the numbers, he's skeptical that Verizon's 5G plans can affordably scale across the United States:

"Yes, it will be better than 4G eventually, and it will be great for supporting huge numbers of low bandwidth IoT connections,” Moffett said. “But broad-based availability of the kinds of insane speeds people have gotten so excited reading about won’t be available for many, many years, if at all."

To hear carriers tell it, 5G was supposed to provide ubiquitous connectivity coast to coast as a much-less expensive alternative to the fiber connections companies like Verizon refused to fully deploy. But as Moffett's data analysis points out, there's increasing skepticism that's not going to be the case. While 5G will be incredibly useful in urban areas, even Wall Street thinks it's going to fall short in terms of driving next-gen connectivity to the more rural and less affluent urban and suburban corners of America that need it most.

And this is all before you factor in price and network restrictions. Americans already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world, something that's only going to continue in the face of regulatory apathy and wireless industry consolidation. And despite greater capacity, 5G connections are almost certain to include additional restrictions in the face of net neutrality's demise, almost certain to at least partially curtail the technology's utility and potential in a bid for even bigger revenues.

Filed Under: 5g
Companies: verizon

Another Study Finds Verizon's 5G Is Barely Available, Not Scaleable

from the big-old-hype-parade dept

We've talked a lot about how while fifth-generation (5G) wireless is a good thing (in that faster, more reliable networks are always good), it's been comically over-hyped by cellular carriers and network hardware vendors looking to justify high prices and sell network gear and handsets. It has also been accompanied by what appears to be a race between cellular carriers to broadly misrepresent what 5G is capable of, and where and when it will actually be available.

At the heart of a lot of this hype has been Verizon, which routinely insists 5G is the "fourth industrial revolution," and will almost mystically result in a universe of smart cities and smarter supporting technologies. Ironically, while saying all of this, Verizon executives publicly warn about carriers over-hyping 5G. For example here's a Verizon blog post from last January:

"The potential for 5G is awesome, but the potential to over-hype and under-deliver on the 5G promise is a temptation that the wireless industry must resist. If network providers, equipment manufacturers, handset makers, app developers and others in the wireless ecosystem engage in behavior designed to purposefully confuse consumers, public officials and the investment community about what 5G really is, we risk alienating the very people we want most to join in developing and harnessing this exciting new technology."

And that's a good point. Carriers desperately want consumers to be excited about 5G, but by over-hyping the technology (or misrepresenting it completely as AT&T did when it pretended its 4G network was 5G) the companies risk associating 5G with hype and bullshit.

That said, Verizon hasn't listened to its own advice. Analysts and reporters keep finding that Verizon's 5G network "launches" so far are largely fluff and nonsense. One analyst recently noted how Verizon's 5G "launch" in Sacramento was, in reality, barely a launch. And absolutely not something Verizon could quickly replicate at any real scale:

"This is not what I expected," Lum said.

Instead of a city covered with 5G signals, and a network geared for mobile services, Lum said he instead found select locations in Sacramento where Verizon built a network that seems exclusively designed to offer fixed wireless services to a handful of potential customers.

Basically, Lum's big takeaway from his work is that, if Verizon wants to cover all of Sacramento with mobile 5G at 28GHz, "you're talking about a crapload of poles."

"I don't think there's enough people in the industry to deploy these," Lum added, noting that antennas would need to be installed every 1,000 feet or so, and each would need the requisite permits, power, backhaul and technicians capable of doing the work. And that labor would have to be replicated at each street corner across Sacramento and, ultimately, across every major and minor city in the country. "I think there's a long way to go," Lum concluded, estimating a ten-year buildout timeline for such an endeavor."

5G will rely heavily on small cells or micro-cellular towers positioned on city lamp posts. Another more recent piece of analysis by telecom analyst Craig Moffett found that just 6% of Sacremento could actually get Verizon 5G in the city, again suggesting the company not only dramatically over-hyped availability, but again questioning how easy it will be for Verizon to duplicate these efforts at national scale. He also ironically found that 5G deployment costs are comparable to what it will cost to deploy fiber, which is generally seen as more efficient and more reliable:

"To us, the most interesting statistic isn't so much the low take rate as it is the relatively low coverage, as it illustrates the enormity of the challenge of scaling a small network, in neighborhood after neighborhood, across the United States," Moffett wrote...The report notes that the cost of the drop for fixed wireless broadband (it could dip to about $200) is lower than it is for an FTTP network (about $700), but the "passing cost" is about the same. The difference maker, Moffett said, is the number of homes that are eligible for service and the ultimate take rate. The low penetration rate Verizon has seen thus far for 5G Home in Sacramento isn't nearly enough to achieve economics that are better than a typical FTTP network example, the report found.

"Our analysis suggests that costs will likely be much higher (that is, cell radii appear smaller) and penetration rates lower than initially expected," the report explained. "If those patterns are indicative of what is to come in a broader rollout, it would mean a much higher cost per connected home, and therefore much lower returns on capital, than what might have been expected from Verizon's advance billing."

Verizon has taken a lot of heat for effectively letting its aging DSL lines rot on the vine as executives shifted its focus from fiber to wireless. And while Verizon would have you believe 5G is a perfectly symmetrical alternative to fiber, that's just not true. Neither is the idea that 5G is going to come in and magically bring oodles of new competition to these neglected markets, something both AT&T and Verizon are quietly making obvious.

Again, the faster, lower-latency connections 5G will deliver will be a good thing -- provided it's actually available in your neighborhood anytime soon and you can afford the premium Verizon intends to charge for it. But over-hyping what 5G can do and where it's available is only going to bite the industry on the ass as it generates distrust among consumers who otherwise might be genuinely excited about the tech. It's a bit of dysfunction Verizon would be smart to heed its own advice on.

Filed Under: 5g, hype, marketing, scalability
Companies: verizon

Verizon Confirms That Yes, 5G Will Cost You Extra

from the nothing's-shocking dept

By now we've established that while fifth-generation (5G) wireless will result in faster, more resilient networks, the technology has been over-hyped to an almost nauseating degree. Yes, faster, lower latency networks are a good thing, but 5G is not as paradigm-rattling as most wireless carriers and hardware vendors have led many in the press to believe. 5G is more of a useful evolution than a revolution, but it has become the equivalent of magic pixie dust in tech policy circles, wherein if you simply say "it will lead to faster deployment of 5G!" you'll immediately add gravitas to your otherwise underwhelming K Street policy pitch.

Throughout all of the hype, carriers have been really hesitant to discuss what's perhaps the most important question: how much will 5G cost? After all, next-generation connectivity is only going to help boost broadband competition if it's both ubiquitous and affordable, two things the US wireless industry has never really been known for. And now that the carrier lobbyists have effectively convinced the Pai FCC to neuter itself, that question has only become more important.

It's starting to become clear why carriers haven't wanted to much talk about price. AT&T's early offerings haven't been much to write home about. And this week Verizon took the wraps off the pricing for its mobile 5G offerings, noting that consumers will need to pay $10 extra per month across the board if they're interested in using it:

"Verizon has decided to treat its emerging mobile 5G network as a premium service that customers should pay more to access. The company is debuting its mobile 5G network next month at select locations in Chicago and Minneapolis, but customers wishing to use it will need a new phone and a new, costlier plan.

Verizon confirmed its new Mobile 5G service will require a new premium unlimited plan, starting at $85. That is $10 more than Verizon’s current GoUnlimited plan. Customers will also need a Motorola Moto Z3 phone — currently the only model compatible with Verizon’s 5G network, and a special 5G Moto Mod attachment, sold separately."

In other words, 5G will cost you extra. Which isn't surprising if you've watched Verizon at all over the last decade or two.

Granted some will try and claim that Verizon should charge more due to the high costs of 5G deployment. That ignores the fact that US consumers already pay some of the highest prices for 4G LTE mobile data in the developed world. That also ignores that Verizon just nabbed incalculable countless billions from the Trump tax cuts and a litany of policy favors from the FCC, money the company has already acknowledged won't be put back into the network. That money was, if you have a memory, supposed to go toward significant new jobs and network investment, according to Verizon.

Verizon's charging more because it doesn't believe it will be adequately punished by competitors for doing so. And it doesn't worry about competition because while the wireless sector (including T-Mobile) talks a good game, they still usually refuse to seriously compete on price. And with the looming Sprint and T-Mobile merger preparing to reduce the total number of major competitors in the space from four to three, that's not getting better anytime soon.

That brings us to the other major question users should be asking about 5G. In a post net neutrality landscape where the FCC no longer seriously has the authority to hold wireless carriers accountable, what kind of annoying restrictions will be placed on these lines? Verizon (who already charges some "unlimited" data customers more to stream video in HD) hasn't affixed any on these early 5G markets yet, but should the FCC win its looming lawsuit over the net neutrality repeal, all bets are off.

Filed Under: 5g, costs, fees
Companies: verizon

5G Has Become The Magic Pixie Dust Of Tech Policy Conversations

from the hype-parade dept

Fifth generation wireless (5G) has quickly become a sort of magical carrot on a stick in tech and telecom policy circles. Telecom lobbyists and the Ajit Pai FCC have spent the better part of the last two years trying to claim that unless we gut consumer protections like net neutrality, America will somehow fall behind in the "race" to 5G. U.S. companies have also convinced the government that if America doesn't want to lose said race (whatever that means), we most assuredly should ban cheaper Chinese networking gear from the country (the protectionism angle of this is entirely coincidental, they'll insist).

More recently, Sprint and T-Mobile have been telling anybody who'll listen that their competition and job eroding merger is the only way to ensure that America doesn't fall behind on 5G. Despite the fact that both companies are on record clearly stating they both could have easily deployed 5G independently, that same argument popped up again this week during merger hearings on Capitol Hill. As did the well-weathered claim that the merger is essential if America wants to beat China in the rush to 5G and avoid being laughed at by the other kids on the 5G playground:

"In prepared remarks, T-Mobile CEO John Legere ties the proposed merger to “American innovation and national security,” and specifically argues that the merger will be necessary to make the United States a leader on next-generation 5G network technology. “The stakes are high — nothing less than preserving our edge in innovation and maintaining our security,” he plans to say.

The CEO plans to say that the US is “falling behind” China on 5G, which he says “has taken a global lead in the race.” He says in the remarks that only a newly merged T-Mobile will be able to compete.

Of course this is all bullshit. As we've noted previously, the "race to 5G" rhetoric is largely nonsense crafted by hardware vendors looking to sell more network hardware and wireless carriers looking to justify high US mobile data prices and spur lagging phone and tablet sales. It's not a race, there's no way to measure a winner (especially given our broadband maps are hot garbage due to regulatory capture), and the only folks likely to win this particular game are the companies selling the hype and related products.

5G is important, but it's not paradigm-rattling important.

5G will be a very useful evolution in wireless in that it will provide faster, lower latency networks that are more easily managed (in large part due to virtualization technology). But 5G is not some mystical fucking panacea. It can't, for example, magically compensate for the reduction in competition in the wake of the T-Mobile deal, a bit of mathematics that never ends well for consumers (go ask a Canadian or the Irish). It won't miraculously compensate for regulatory capture at the Ajit Pai FCC. Given these and other broken market realities, it's unlikely to result in what consumers really want: lower prices.

In tech policy circles, 5G has become the equivalent of lobbying and policy mysticism, entirely untethered from factual reality. You just sprinkle a little bit on your argument and you can use it to justify pretty much anything. Blake Reid, a Professor at Colorado Law, probably put it best:

Again, it's perfectly fine if you're realistically enthusiastic about the modest but important improvements 5G networks are going to bring. But carriers have been trying to pass the technology off as the next industrial revolution and some kind of deus ex machina. Not just because they want to sell product, but because they're using it as a regulatory carrot on a stick, claiming that unless you give big telecom "X" (X=less oversight, more subsidies, merger approval, the death of net neutrality), America will somehow fall behind an arbitrary measurement they've entirely pulled out of their collective ass.

If we follow down the rabbit hole hyping 5G without addressing the massive problems in both the fixed and wireless US broadband markets, this race ends with all of us crying and nursing a pulled hamstring.

Filed Under: 5g, hype, overhype, wireless

Sprint Sues AT&T Over Its Fake 5G, Says AT&T's Tricking Consumers

from the false-and-deceptive dept

Big telecom operators haven't been exactly honest when it comes to the looming fifth-generation wireless standard (5G). Eager to use the improvements to charge higher rates and sell new gear, carriers and network vendors are already dramatically over-hyping where the service is actually available, and what it can actually do. Some, like AT&T, have gone so far as to actively mislead customers by pretending that its existing 4G networks are actually 5G. AT&T took this to the next level recently by issuing phone updates that change the 4G icon to "5GE" on customer phones, despite the fact that actual 5G isn't really available.

In a country with functioning regulatory oversight, a competent regulator would at least issue a statement pointing out that misleading consumers in this fashion is false advertising. Instead, AT&T executives, FCC regulatory capture in tow, have quite literally expressed glee at the consternation their 5G head fake is creating among consumers and competitors alike:

"Every company is guilty of building a narrative of how you want the world to work, and I love the fact that we broke our industry's narrative two days ago, and so they're frustrated and they're going to do what they do," Donovan said.

"I think the result of last month, beating the industry out [with the 5G hotspot], and this 5G E launch a couple of days ago, our competitors are frustrated," Donovan said. "if I have now occupied beachfront real estate in my competitors' heads, that makes me smile."

Late last week Sprint decided to respond by filing a lawsuit against AT&T in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing that the "significance of AT&T’s deception cannot be overstated." AT&T's practice likely qualifies as "unfair and deceptive" under the FTC Act, and Sprint argues that the head fake is potentially costing it customers as consumer buy into the fact than AT&T's ahead of the curve on 5G upgrades:

"AT&T has sought to gain an unfair advantage in the race to 5G by embarking on a nationwide advertising campaign to deceive consumers into believing that its existing 4G LTE Advanced network is now a 5G network...But calling its network “5GE” does not make it a 5G network and instead deceives customers into believing it is something that it is not...AT&T's false and misleading statements deceive consumers into believing that AT&T now operates a 5G wireless network and, through this deception, AT&T seeks to induce consumers to purchase or renew AT&T's services when they might otherwise have purchased Sprint's services."

AT&T's likely to argue that its "5G E" or 5G Evolution technology really does offer faster speeds and better range than traditional 4G by incorporating 4x4 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antennas and 256 QAM technologies. Still, that's just an "enhanced" version of 4G, something AT&T tries to tap dance around by using the "E."

However AT&T lawyers frame the company's defense, it's very clear AT&T's still being misleading. Companies that think they're building consumer excitement by misrepresenting what 5G is or where it's available may find this kind of marketing is having the exact opposite impact (frustration, skepticism, distrust) their marketing departments originally hoped for.

Filed Under: 5g, 5ge, mobile broadband, truth in advertising
Companies: at&t, sprint

A Deeper Look At Verizon's Early 5G 'Launch' Finds It's Barely Available

from the aggressively-overhyped dept

Wireless carriers haven't quite gotten the message that their relentless hype surrounding 5G may result in consumers being more annoyed than excited, potentially undermining the entire point.

While 5G is certainly going to be a good thing in that it will provide faster, more resilient connectivity, we've discussed at length how the talk about a "race to 5G" is largely just marketing nonsense pushed by cell carriers and network hardware vendors. As are claims that 5G is going to fundamentally transform the universe in some mystical capacity (like this piece claiming 5G will soon have us all working four day workweeks). 5G is good in that it will provide lower latency, faster connections, but it should be seen more as a modest evolution than some kind of dramatic revolution.

From claims that 5G will magically build the smart cities of tomorrow to lobbying org proclamations of 5G as a job creator, 5G is routinely heralded as something far grander than it actually is by industry. Much of this is tactical; carriers have been using 5G for several years now as a carrot on a stick for gullible regulators, informing them that unless they do everything the industry wants (like, say, gut all meaningful government authority over predatory natural monopolies), the United States will be the laughing stock of the world.

But the fact that over-hyping the tech could cause brand damage is something these companies don't seem particularly concerned about. AT&T, for example, has been widely ridiculed for simply changing the 4G logo on peoples' phones to 5G in the hopes that the press and public were too stupid to know the difference. And AT&T's early 5G offerings have been similarly over-hyped, promising availability in "12 cities" that barely exists if you take a closer look. Pricing isn't so great either, AT&T's initial product delivering just 15 gigabytes of usage for $70, not including network access fees, a $500 hotspot, and usage surcharges.

Verizon's initial 5G offerings are being similarly over-hyped. Despite Verizon's claims last fall that its shiny new 300 Mbps, $50 home 5G service ($70 if you don't bundle Verizon mobile wireless) would be widely available in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento, folks who have actually measured availability say they're not particularly impressed:

"This is not what I expected," Lum said.

Instead of a city covered with 5G signals, and a network geared for mobile services, Lum said he instead found select locations in Sacramento where Verizon built a network that seems exclusively designed to offer fixed wireless services to a handful of potential customers.

Basically, Lum's big takeaway from his work is that, if Verizon wants to cover all of Sacramento with mobile 5G at 28GHz, "you're talking about a crapload of poles."

"I don't think there's enough people in the industry to deploy these," Lum added, noting that antennas would need to be installed every 1,000 feet or so, and each would need the requisite permits, power, backhaul and technicians capable of doing the work. And that labor would have to be replicated at each street corner across Sacramento and, ultimately, across every major and minor city in the country. "I think there's a long way to go," Lum concluded, estimating a ten-year buildout timeline for such an endeavor.

In other words Verizon, fresh off its promise not to over-hype 5G, launched a tiny market trial that can't be replicated at scale, but disguised it as a major industry milestone. This is, of course, well on par with Verizon's past hype efforts, which have included calling the technology the "fourth industrial revolution," and insisting it is "going to change everything."

Again, 5G certainly isn't a bad thing, in that network advancements are always good. 5G, whenever it launches at scale (likely 2021 or later for many), will offer faster, lower latency networks, assuming it's available in your neck of the woods. The virtualization tech accompanying much of the standard will make these networks easier to manage. But 5G isn't some mystical panacea that's going to fix everything wrong with the broadband sector (especially, say, the monopoly over cell tower backhaul, waning competition in light of mindless merger mania, or the glaring regulatory capture we do nothing about).

By overstating what 5G is carriers risk setting consumer expectations too high, and carriers may just be cementing a backlash as consumers realize that 5G (especially 5G pricing) isn't anything close to an actual miracle, assuming it's even actually available. And given the damage the sector has done to its brand during the recent games of regulatory patty cake with Ajit Pai, good will towards this telecom industry was already arguably in short supply.

Filed Under: 5g, overhype, wireless
Companies: verizon

Apple Helps AT&T Mislead Consumers With Fake 5G

from the double-head-fake dept

Last month we noted how AT&T had pissed off competitors and consumers alike by pretending its existing fourth generation wireless network (4G) was actually 5G. More specifically, AT&T has been changing the "4G" icon on its customers phones to say "5G E," despite the fact that actual 5G service at scale is still probably several years away. Technically, AT&T simply took some of the improvements it recently added to its 4G networks (like better MIMO antennas and more efficient 256 QAM technologies), and decided to call this "5G Evolution" in a bid to pretend it was the first to launch actual 5G.

Over-hyping your product's capabilities and availability isn't a particularly bright idea, since you're only associating your brand and the 5G standard with disappointment. Despite being widely criticized for the practice, AT&T appears to have learned very little from the process, only responding by expressing glee at the amount of consternation created among consumers and competitors alike:

"Every company is guilty of building a narrative of how you want the world to work, and I love the fact that we broke our industry's narrative two days ago, and so they're frustrated and they're going to do what they do," Donovan said.

I think the result of last month, beating the industry out [with the 5G hotspot], and this 5G E launch a couple of days ago, our competitors are frustrated," Donovan said. "if I have now occupied beachfront real estate in my competitors' heads, that makes me smile."

The problem for AT&T is its launch of actual 5G was just as misleading. The company proclaimed it was the first carrier to "launch" 5G in 12 cities as of last December, but a closer examination finds the service is only available in a few areas, and at pricing that fails to impress ($500 for a mobile hotspot that's not widely available, $70 for just 15 GB of usage, plus network access fees).

Meanwhile, AT&T's seeing no real market or regulatory punishment for misleading customers about that fake 5G E label popping up on phones. The company had already made the change on Android, and last week Apple was happy to roll out an update that applied the inaccurate label on iPhones as well.

"Multiple users on Twitter are now reporting that they’re seeing the new 5G E icon on devices running the latest iOS 12.2 beta 2, which was released earlier today. The new icon isn’t there for everyone, presumably because it will only appear in cities where AT&T’s 5G Evolution network — the company’s intentionally misleading name for its LTE network that it seems to hope customers will confuse for actual, next-generation 5G networks — is active."

Nifty. Of course Apple isn't even planning to offer a real 5G-capable phone until at least 2020, so they similarly have an incentive to try and fool customers into thinking their phone has suddenly received an incredible new upgrade. Cumulatively there are a lot of companies busy overstating the availability and capability of a technology that, in reality, barely even exists. That's going to operate in the exact opposite way as it's intended, since it teaches customers to see 5G itself (which really does deliver some modest evolutionary improvements in both speed, reliability, and latency) as little more than another empty promise.

Filed Under: 5g, 5ge, fake 5g, iphone, marketing, mobile data
Companies: apple, at&t

AT&T Execs Think It's Really Funny They Misled Consumers About 5G Availability

from the too-clever-by-half dept

So earlier this month, we noted how AT&T had pissed off competitors and consumers alike by pretending its existing fourth generation wireless network (4G) was actually 5G. More specifically, AT&T has been changing the "4G" icon on its customers phones to say "5G E," despite the fact that actual 5G service at scale is still probably several years away. Technically, AT&T simply took some of the improvements it recently added to its 4G networks (like better MIMO antennas and more efficient 256 QAM technologies), and decided to call this "5G Evolution" in a bid to pretend it was the first to launch actual 5G.

Competitors and consumers noticed.

Competitors like T-Mobile have been having fun making fun of AT&T's head fake on Twitter:

Here's where a normal company would acknowledge it had been overly creative and announce that in a bid to avoid confusing customers, it would walk back what was fairly obviously a bad, misleading idea. But that's not how AT&T rolls. When pressed for comment, AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan decided instead to double down, and expressed glee at the level of consternation AT&T's fake 5G created:

"Every company is guilty of building a narrative of how you want the world to work, and I love the fact that we broke our industry's narrative two days ago, and so they're frustrated and they're going to do what they do," Donovan said.

Except it's not just AT&T's competitors that are frustrated. Customers also think AT&T's moves are misleading, something that harms AT&T since consumers are being trained to see AT&T's 5G promises as horse shit at this juncture. Donovan though remained undaunted in his excitement over the confusion his marketing gambit sowed:

"I think the result of last month, beating the industry out [with the 5G hotspot], and this 5G E launch a couple of days ago, our competitors are frustrated," Donovan said. "if I have now occupied beachfront real estate in my competitors' heads, that makes me smile."

Granted if you've watched AT&T mislead the press, public, and government on subjects like net neutrality or misleading billing, this is certainly well in character for the telecom giant. AT&T's not likely to learn the underlying lesson here: instead of getting consumers excited about the real potential for 5G, they've fixated consumers and the press on the fact that AT&T's promises surrounding this technology shouldn't be believed.

Customers were already skeptical of wireless carrier claims given years of misleading coverage maps, and this sort of behavior will only support the belief that, for lack of a more technical term, the wireless sector is often aggressively full of shit.

Filed Under: 5g, 5g evolution, john noovan, lies, wireless
Companies: at&t

Verizon Promises Not To Over-Hype 5G, Immediately Proceeds To Over-Hype 5G

from the ill-communication dept

We've talked a lot about how while fifth-generation wireless is a good thing (in that faster, more reliable networks are always good), it's been comically over-hyped by cellular carriers and network hardware vendors. It has also been accompanied by what appears to be a race between cellular carriers to broadly misrepresent what 5G is capable of, and where and when it will actually be available. AT&T, for example, began changing the 4G icons on user phones to "5GE," despite the fact actual 5G isn't even out of the oven yet.

Hoping to apparently cash in on AT&T's well-mocked decision while at CES, Verizon subsequently penned this blog post trying to proclaim itself as the more measured of the wired carriers when it comes to 5G:

"The potential for 5G is awesome, but the potential to over-hype and under-deliver on the 5G promise is a temptation that the wireless industry must resist. If network providers, equipment manufacturers, handset makers, app developers and others in the wireless ecosystem engage in behavior designed to purposefully confuse consumers, public officials and the investment community about what 5G really is, we risk alienating the very people we want most to join in developing and harnessing this exciting new technology."

The problem is that Verizon has been at the very forefront of over-hyping 5G for years now. When I went to go dig up numerous past CES appearances where Verizon insisted that 5G would "transform society," I'd noticed they'd disappeared from the CES website. That said, Verizon's own website is filled with examples where the company insists that only 5G can really help us build the smart cities of tomorrow, helping to "spur economic growth," and "improve the quality of life" for city residents. And Verizon's CES appearance by CEO Hans Vesterberg was packed with what most certainly smelled like misleading hype to me:

"It’s going to change everything,” said Vestberg, athletically clad in a tight Verizon-branded T-shirt that wouldn’t be out of place at an Apple or Google product launch.

"It’s quantum leap over 4G,” Vestberg added, in a statement he repeated no less than four times.

Did he also use the term “fourth industrial revolution,” another favorite of 5G marketers? Yup. At least three times.

This idea that a universe of smart city and smart car innovation is only possible via 5G has always been misleading in and of itself. Yes, faster, more resilient networks are good, but there's nothing inherently magical about 5G that will make it somehow forge innovation out of whole cloth. Most existing 4G networks can generally do most of what 5G can (especially with the latest MIMO antenna or other upgrades), 5G networks will just be faster and more resilient with lower latency. 5G is not some mystical panacea. It will, however, probably be used to justify Verizon's higher prices, to be sure.

Verizon has also been accused by competitors like T-Mobile of being misleading on timelines for 5G delivery:

That said not everybody was all that impressed by Verizon's CES demonstration of the "5G revolution":

Again: 5G will ultimately be a good thing whenever it arrives at any real scale (likely 2020 and later), offering faster speeds, lower latency, and greater reliability. But it's not going to magically fix the wireless sector's nastier problems, like high prices due to regional cell tower backhaul monopolies, the waning competition caused by merger mania, or the slow but steady erosion of internet equality and consumer protections thanks to the industry's lobbying stranglehold over government.

Filed Under: 5g, hype
Companies: verizon

AT&T Attempts A Head Fake With 'Fake 5G'

from the tomato,-tomahto dept

We've already gone over how fifth-generation "5G" wireless, while a notable improvement in network speed and performance, has been obnoxiously over-hyped by hardware vendors and cellular carriers. We've also noted that in reality, broad availability of 5G-capable handsets and networks are still quite a few years away, and when products do arrive, they won't, contrary to some claims, magically fix the myriad of problems deeply woven into the U.S. broadband industry, most of which have to do with lobbyist political power and the monopoly domination of cellular tower backhaul.

AT&T's been among the biggest hype generators for 5G, even though its early offerings on this front, while fast, tend to suffer from high prices and low usage caps (did you expect something else?). In addition to over-hyping 5G's impact, AT&T has been busy both distorting what 5G actually is... and dramatically over-stating actual availability. For example, last year AT&T introduced what it called "5G Evolution" wireless connectivity, which wasn't actually 5G, but a collection of tech (specifically 4x4 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antenna and 256 QAM technologies) that simply made existing LTE networks somewhat faster.

AT&T's since taken this head fake to an entirely new level. Last week, for example, AT&T began replacing the "LTE" (4G) notifier on many users phones with a "5G E" symbol, despite its phones and networks not actually being upgraded to 5G yet:

In short, AT&T is taking some modest network improvements to existing 4G LTE networks, and confidently calling them 5G, knowing full well the Pai FCC isn't likely to do much of anything about it. Confusing customers into thinking AT&T's ahead in the 5G "race" (which isn't a race) appears to be the whole point:

"AT&T last year introduced the “5G Evolution” marketing label to cover markets where it offers advanced LTE network technologies like carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO, LAA and 256 QAM. Such technologies can dramatically improve the speeds available through LTE, and AT&T has argued that such technologies pave the way for eventual 5G services, though critics have argued that AT&T’s “5G Evolution” marketing moves only serve to sow confusion among consumers."

If you've been around the wireless sector for a while, you might recall that earlier generation standards also played fast and loose with actual definitions. Carrier marketing departments, for example, eventually convinced the UN's International Telecommunication Union that it was fine to pretty much call whatever they wanted "4G", since confusing and misleading customers, or over-stating product availability (as any cellular carrier coverage map will tell you), has never really been considered a bad thing in telecom.

The one-two punch of over-promising what 5G actually delivers (like this story which proclaims it will bring 4 day workweeks to us all) while distorting the very definition of 5G, is likely to leave a sour taste in consumers' mouths once they realize the canyon-esque gap between marketing hype and reality (especially on pricing, which is rarely discussed). And this is, of course, before you tack on the inevitable arbitrary restrictions and limitations AT&T hopes to erect in the wake of the death of real FCC oversight and net neutrality protections.

Filed Under: 4g, 5g, 5g e, false advertising, fcc, lte, wireless
Companies: at&t