Why does iPhone (and I presume Androids as well) display cellular connection in the status bar as “3G” or “5G”, but “LTE” instead of “4G”?
In: Technology
I seem to recall AT&T lieing and advertising as the first to 4G, which was actually 3G with extended backhaul (HSPA+). 4G LTE was advertised to differentiate from the “fake” 4G advertised by AT&T.
It’s a marketing thing. Tmobile has “4G” but it’s actually HSPA+, which is “3.5G” technically. LTE is actually not quite 4G but they’ve marketed it to be better than 4G
“LTE” was originally used because early networks did not quite meet the 4G standard, although they were still faster than 3G. Most networks are now LTE-A and do meet the 4G standard.
Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/4g-vs-lte-274882/
Speculation: It could be that the OSs simply lump them together for the sake of simplicity.
LTE is the technology behind 4G. It stands for Long Term Evolution. It usually shows up on your screen as 4G LTE. It was a standard developed when 4G was designed for the purposes of phones and towers and other devices to talk to each other. There were other standards developed at the same time called UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) and WiMax, but LTE is the global standard technology for cellular communications. It is an open, interoperable standard used by virtually all carriers. **All major smartphones use LTE today. In fact, there is no such thing as true 4G as defined by the standards set forth. 4G was defined as the ideal standard and as no phones actually can reach this standard, so they defined LTE. Even if your phone is advertised as 4G, it uses LTE technology.**
[Source](https://www.signalboosters.com/blog/lte-vs-4g-whats-the-difference/)
LTE *is* 4G. It stands for ‘Long Term Evolution’.
Phone companies wanted to show consumers how large the technological jump from 3G was, so they added LTE after 4G. Thus the name 4G LTE.
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Follow up question: What about VoLTE?
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