In a world where technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace, the arrival of 5G is no surprise. With manufacturers vying for leadership in 5G technology, AT&T recently announced the arrival of its 5GE network, leaving many people with questions.

So, what exactly is 5GE, and how does it differ from 5G?

First and foremost, it’s important to note that 5GE is not 5G, despite the similar acronyms. 5GE stands for “5G Evolution,” a marketing term used by AT&T to describe its advanced LTE network, which offers faster speeds and a more responsive experience.

The 5GE network was rolled out in select cities in late 2018, promising peak speeds up to 400 Mbps, almost twice as fast as the previous LTE network. While this is impressive, it’s worth noting that 5G networks offer even faster download and upload speeds, with peak speeds reaching up to 10 Gbps.

In terms of technology, 5G and 5GE use different cellular network technologies. 5G is a completely new network architecture, with a focus on improving latency to almost zero and supporting more advanced technologies such as augmented reality and autonomous vehicles. Conversely, 5GE uses similar technology to 4G LTE but with added features such as carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO, and 256 QAM. Simply put, 5GE is a transitional step towards 5G.

AT&T’s marketing strategy has received a lot of criticism because the use of 5GE makes it sound like it is already connected to a next-generation 5G network. The International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT-2020) standard is still being developed, and current 5G networks don’t fully comply with the finalized version of IMT-2020. So, in reality, neither 5G nor 5GE is technically compliant with the final standard specification yet.