LTE's initial iterations were actually not considered 4G by definition. Part of the longterm evolution part was that as the components were upgraded they would comply with 4G. I can break 100mbps down in a few places on an iphone SE with only a cat3 modem, but that's pushing the spec's real-world limit for that.
Today these speeds are easily achievable on most networks, it's just unlikely for AT&T due to congestion and their poor network and spectrum planning. It helps to spend money on capex instead of buying up shitty Mexican carriers and DirecTV to stem the flow of fleeing customers.
That was a bit of a mess. Technically, no carrier at the time had a "real" 4G network, according to the ITU- only LTE-Advanced and WiMAX 2 met their definition.
Since the ITU had declared that Sprint's WiMAX network and Verizon's LTE network weren't real 4G, T-Mobile decided that they could call their (just-as-fast-as-early-LTE-networks) HSPA+ network 4G too, and then AT&T was almost forced to follow suit because T-Mobile was advertising how their 4G network was so much bigger than everyone else's.
It should be noted that T-Mobile was the only one set up to deploy DC-HSPA+ at 42mbps peak theoretical. Scratching around 30mbps was around what Verizon could do before congestion set in on band 13. AT&T to the best of my knowledge only had HSPA+ at 21mbps, so it really was way more of a stretch for them to call their network 4G.
So at least, yeah... tmo kinda could have argued it was similar to early '4G' radio technologies on speed alone.
They were 4G by definition because the definition of 4G is the 4th generation, and LTE is *clearly" that, despite what some idiots in the ITU may try and claim.
The 3G/4G/etc labels are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Please don't let a phone company hear you say that, they'll roll the "g" number every year because there's a new generation of firmware. Words should, and do, mean things.
I didn't say they don't mean things. And phone companies are welcome to try and call whatever they like 5G but it doesn't make it true, any more than the ITU trying to claim some technology is or is not 5G. What makes something 5G is that it is a widely adopted technology that is a clear generation ahead of 4G. That's it. It's not complicated.
Today these speeds are easily achievable on most networks, it's just unlikely for AT&T due to congestion and their poor network and spectrum planning. It helps to spend money on capex instead of buying up shitty Mexican carriers and DirecTV to stem the flow of fleeing customers.