Vodafone doesn't generally do fake 5G though. I think I saw one report of it on Lebara a while back, but when the 5G icon appears on Vodafone, you're almost always connected to 5G.It is because the cell you are connecting is enabled for 5G but there is no 5G signal to use. This is a 5G NonStandalone deployment, reliant on the 4G network. In your case, fake 5G.
Vodafone had fake 5G in Kilwinning for about 5 months.Vodafone doesn't generally do fake 5G though. I think I saw one report of it on Lebara a while back, but when the 5G icon appears on Vodafone, you're almost always connected to 5G.
It could be that iOS18 FTM is not reporting corectly, but in the majority of cases, in my tests, I have the 5G icon with only LTE bands reported in FTM.Vodafone doesn't generally do fake 5G though. I think I saw one report of it on Lebara a while back, but when the 5G icon appears on Vodafone, you're almost always connected to 5G.
Interesting, I haven't really used Vodafone for an extended period of time but when I did use it (thanks to @.RajSandhu2k), I didn't see any fake 5G icon. O2 and Three definitely do it around here.It could be that iOS18 FTM is not reporting corectly, but in the majority of cases, in my tests, I have the 5G icon with only LTE bands reported in FTM.
An example now, London W3 in a park.