So, which one should you lean toward if you could pick a preferred web link?
Overall Findings
AT&T’s term for 4G LTE-A or LTE+.
An improvement on LTE.
Lifewire
Peak downloads over three times as fast as LTE.
An older form of 5GE.
Often incorrectly considered 4G.
An improvement over 3G.
They’re both used to describe a standard that dictates things like speed over a mobile web connection.
One is faster and newer than the other.
One way to think about these terms is to see them on a spectrum.
5GE is an improvement that goes above what LTE is capable of.
Newer Standard: 5GE Is Really 4G, But LTE Is 3.9G
Also called LTE-A and LTE+.
It’s considered true 4G.
A lesser form of 5GE.
An improvement over the original 3G.
It’s faster and more reliable.
This is where 4G Long Term Evolution (4G LTE) was born.
It sits in the middle of the two.
So, technically,4G LTE-A could be considered 4G.
So where does 5GE fall in all of this?
You could also consider it a “pre-5G” connection.
There’s just one problem:the two terms are actually identical.
4G LTE-A = 5GE.
Performance: 5GE Is 3x Faster
1 Gbps peak download speeds.
500 Mbps peak upload speeds.
Latency under 5 ms.
300 Mbps peak download speeds.
75 Mbps peak upload speeds.
5GE has other improvements beyond just true 4G speeds, like more reliable connections.
Smoother transitions as you move between cell towers and a greater capacity for more users means fewer dropped connections.
Capacity is measured byspectral efficiency.
LTE’s downlink spectral efficiency is as high as 2.67 bits/s/Hz, while 5GE’s is 3.7 bits/s/Hz.
As for uplink, LTE sits at 0.08 bits/s/Hz and 5GE at 0.12 bits/s/Hz.
The higher the better here, so 5GE is the clear winner.
More efficient antennas and base stations also mean 4G LTE-A networks can provide better coverage than the older ones.
We see this in its speed and connection reliability enhancements.
Lower latency and faster maximum speeds mean that your downloads and streams are much quicker.
