You don’t know the half of it.
And it’s worse than you think.
You already know that digital devices are the vessels for cyber scams.
That complicated piece of technology has a slew of information on it that readily stores your identity, pictures, financials and the people you know.
It seems like every other month an executive from large American corporations appear before Congress to discuss how they screwed over the people that buy their product.
Just like when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted Facebook took its users information and sold it – resulting in a massive fine.
But other companies like your cell phone carrier have been lying to you about their service for years and you’ll be shocked to learn what was just uncovered.
AT&T customers were in for a treat in January when they looked down at their phone and discovered “5GE” displaying prominently where “4G” usually is.
What? That technology is finally here now?
Nope. Not even close. Despite the fact that the phone service giant announced they would release a 5G-phone in the near future, 5G networks are still in the puberty stage.
That’s right. They are selling you a device for a network that hasn’t even been invented yet.
First you have to know what terms like 3G, 4G, and LTE mean for wireless technology. LTE and 4G basically mean the same thing in most parts of the world outside of the United States.
Wired Magazine says, “they refer to the same group of technologies that emerged nearly a decade ago and provide speeds around 10 times faster than their 3G predecessors. But in the US, 4G corresponds to HSPA+, which is technically still a 3G innovation.”
“The distinction between 4G and LTE is a purely American one. In every other country there’s no difference,” says Brendan Gill, CEO of OpenSignal, which collects data on carriers’ signal quality.
That means AT&T has been doing this for years, essentially doing the same thing for its upcoming 5GE data. They’re banking on the fact that you’re too naïve to know the difference – and too naïve to know they’re abusing your loyalty to them.
Wired also noted, “The 5GE symbol really means a phone is using advanced LTE technology, which is available on other carriers and is slower than the 10-gigabyte speeds 5G promises. When the company introduces actual 5G tech, it plans to call it 5G+ instead. Sprint is suing AT&T over the nomenclature, alleging it constitutes deceptive advertising.”
That marketing ploy should be illegal and be broadcasted all over national news.
AT&T is selling a product that they don’t have and when they finally do, no time in the near future, they’re going to call it something completely different as if it was an evolution of 5GE.
That’s both bald-faced lying and lying by omission at the same time.
And they are also planning to intentionally confuse you with a “diffusing of responsibility” tactic.
They’re going to point fingers at cell phone hardware companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, etc. to claim that the symbols represent something different from device to device.
This is a way for them to pretend like they don’t understand what the problem is and what some of the other things on your phone mean.
The Wired article also noted, “Even beyond 5GE, there’s a lot of confusion about what the letters, bars, and other symbols on your phone actually mean. Experts say interpreting them may only become more complicated as 5G rolls out in the coming years.”
This is all a tactic to confuse what you pay for but luckily with the way these companies compete over the 5GE market, maybe there will be one to explain exactly what you’re getting – most of them don’t.