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The ‘5G’ indicator on your phone.

ewanmclean2005

Super Pro Member
From what I understand the 5G logo on your phone isn’t telling you the full picture about which network technology you’re actually connected to.

Have you ever been on a 5G connection, pulled out your phone, pulled up a benchmarking app to test your connection speed and been sorely dissapointed with the results? Well it could actually be that your phone isn’t connected to 5G but 5G is actually locally available but you’re not within the coverage footprint this isn’t a bug from what I’m lead to believe but within the design specification.

This was one of the most bizarre things I remember coming across when I first got a 5G phone.

There is a dead zone near my house where my signal indicator states 5G, but my phone is in fact connected to 4G but one of the local masts broadcasts a 5G signal. The throughput (3UK) is about 2-3mbit/s and some of my benchmarking apps tell me that the phone is indeed on 4G but my status says 5G on the signal indicator.

I’m sure someone on here would be able to explain why this is.
 
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I like Samsung's implemention of the 5G icon, it will show a hollow 5G icon for a mast reporting NR but no NR connection and a filled 5G icon for an actual NR connection.
Very precise cg0, much poshness. (y) 😊
 
Should be considered misleading/false advertising. If you see "5G" on your phone, one would expect that this indicates the phone is connected via 5G. However in practice yes it makes little difference as I've seen 5G and get 2mbit before and I have definitely been connected at 5G.
 
I like Samsung's implemention of the 5G icon, it will show a hollow 5G icon for a mast reporting NR but no NR connection and a filled 5G icon for an actual NR connection.
This is also controlled by the provider too, I believe with Vodafone they don't allow the hollow/filled version, rather they just show a static icon


Edit: as seen here
16546844882520.webp
 
This is also controlled by the provider too, I believe with Vodafone they don't allow the hollow/filled version, rather they just show a static icon


Edit: as seen here
View attachment 2663
3 and EE both allow the hollow/filled icon as I've used both of these ROMs on my S20+ and it supported this

I did notice however that the 4G+ icon never appeared on the EE ROM when connected to 4G+. Strange they would do this, but on the 3 ROM the 4G+ indicator does show
 
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I did notice however that the 4G+ icon never appeared on the EE ROM when connected to 4G+. Strange they would do this, but on the 3 ROM the 4G+ indicator does show

Also an EE choice so as to not seem like some of their 4G areas are 'inferior' to others, probably also to prevent people complaining about paying for their (now historic) 'double-speed' plans but only visit areas where regular 4G was available (rather than 4G+)
 
5G is more of a standard, than a "speed". Most people see the 5 is better than 4. But it depends on the frequencies and bandwidth of the bands used. For example, most Three UK sites provide Band 3 and Band 20 for 4G. Band 3 has more bandwidth (15Mhz) and is capable of better "speeds" but it does not have a great range due to the frequency. The signal is blocked by objects such as buildings, trees, hills etc. Band 20 on the other hand only has 5Mhz bandwidth but it travels far better and reflects off objects (bouncing around like a jack rabbit!) so your device will show a great 4G signal, but speeds will be, in some cases slower than 3G especially if you are on the outer edges of a "cell".

5G also allows for greater use of bands from different sources, akin to filling a bath with all the taps on, and also hose pipes from your neighbours all working together to fill the bath. These other sources, at the moment, are mostly 4G bands. But as pure 5G bands start to come online, the speeds should increase due to being able to get more data transfer at 5G standards.

cellmapper.net is a great resource to show the coverage of the different bands, including the over-laps in cells. The more overlaps you have the better your chances are of getting a better speeds.
 
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