https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/8/18173716/verizon-5g-fake-icon-att

Verizon says it won’t lie to customers about whether their phone is connected to a 5G network, as AT&T has essentially started to do. “We won’t take an old phone and just change the software to turn the 4 in the status bar into a 5,” writes Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technical officer.

The promise comes right as AT&T has started to roll out updates doing exactly that: changing the “LTE” icon in the corner of select phones into an icon reading “5G E.” One might assume that a “5G E” connection is the same thing as a “5G” connection, but it’s not. AT&T is just pretending that the faster portions of its LTE network are 5G and is trying to get a head start on the 5G marketing race by branding it “5G Evolution.”