AT&T may have just amicably settled a false advertising lawsuit with Sprint over its "5G Evolution" branding, but the company's apparent marketing strategy here is proving to be a disaster. Rather than taking a victory lap for arriving at real 5G faster than its US competitors - AT&T's actual 5G network currently supports more cities than Verizon's - the company is still clinging to a meaningless, confusing logo it refuses to walk away from.
While AT&T has stated plainly that 5G Evolution isn't actually 5G, in that it doesn't meet the technical or speed standards to be classified as such, the end goal seems to be tricking its own customers into thinking they're accessing a next-generation network through pure obfuscation. The end result: a whole lot of confusion and news outlets, like The Verge, having to routinely stress that 5G E is a misleading attempt to gin up hype with no basis in hard data.