5G has arrived! On no it hasn’t. Oh yes it has.

This week the ITU officially kicked off the 4G/5G pantomime we’ve all been waiting for. They picked two technologies which are now officially 4G. The unfortunate reality is that the general public will almost inevitably only ever know them as 5G. This situation can only serve to cause confusion in the industry as engineers clash with marketeers, the press struggle to update their style guides and the public get deceived.

"But is it 4G or is it 5G?"

The two technologies are of course LTE Advanced and the humorously entitled WirelessMAN-Advanced (aka. 802.16m and WiMAX 2.0). These are patently not 5G technologies in any technical sense. Yet it is difficult to imagine how they can ever be marketed as anything else. The existing WiMAX and LTE networks have already monopolised the 4G moniker despite both being 3G standards. Sprint has dubbed its WiMAX network 4G as has Teliasonera with its LTE deployment. Over the next few years many more LTE networks will be rolled out and inevitably be billed as 4G – the numerical system has become such an easy way for consumers to understand the evolution.

With the next (next) generation of mobile broadband technologies now on the horizon we’ve already seen an early use of the term 5G in a non-tech magazine - namely British Airway’s Business Life. This has already resulted in industry push back with the GSMA’s Director of Technology penning a letter of complaint. But how can the press be expected to know any better when the industry itself in such a state of confusion?

South Afican operator Cell C dubbed its HSPA+ network 4G and was rapped by the South African advertising standards body for deceiving the public while Sprint and Teliasonera get away with it. HSPA+ networks are actually causing confusion everywhere. Presumably in an effort to avoid misusing the term T-Mobile US has heavily advertised its shiny new HSPA+ network as delivering ‘4G speeds’ but not as a 4G network. (Update - T-Mo US has now dropped the ‘speeds’ messaging and claims it has the the largest 4G network in the US).

There seems to be a widespread tacit acceptance that labelling some 3G technologies as 4G is reasonable but doing the same to others is an offence – apparently punishable with legal action. How the industry reacts to this situation will be fascinating. For some an obsession with the distinction is just idle pedantry but for others it represents the active deception of consumers.