What the cellular, Wi-Fi, and satellite symbols mean on your iPhone or iPad

The top left corner and sometimes the top right corner of your iPhone or iPad screen does a great job of wrapping meanings using symbolic shorthand. Since the introduction of the iPhone, Apple has used a few letters or a small image to let you know at a glance the performance, nature and quality of your internet signal.

But with so many generations of mobile technology in use and so many symbols, can you decipher them all? Here’s your guide to understanding the oldest to newest American symbols. (See figure.)

Cellular generations started with an analog service, now called 1G. The first digital service, 2G, is our starting point:

• G, E, 3G: These symbols represent 2G, 2.5G (EDGE) and 3G. EDGE was a bridging technology that merged 2G cellular channels for greater throughput, used by Apple in iPhones before the company found that 3G chipsets had little energy to deploy without quickly draining batteries. 2G, 2.5G and 3G networks have been shut down or have deadlines to shut down in most countries that have deployed 4G and 5G networks. These early flavors used frequency ranges inefficiently, and providers now want to use them to carry much more data.
• 4G: Really a faster version of 3G, it was more of a marketing label – about 6 Mbps downstream and less than 2 Mbps upstream. You may still see this on some networks and phone models. However, you are more likely to see it…
• LTE or 5GE: Both technologies use the 4G protocol – the “5G” in “5GE” is pure marketing – which offers up to tens of megabytes per second downstream and several Mbps upstream. They were evolutionary steps towards where…
• 5G: The 5G icon appears when connected to a 5G network that overlaps frequencies previously used for LTE. T-Mobile uses it to denote its “extended range” network, as their 5G upgrade allows for a larger high-speed coverage area than LTE mobile transmitters in the same locations. Data speeds are slightly faster than LTE, but not lightning fast.
• 5G or 5GUC: Depending on your carrier and region, you may see 5G or 5GUC for connections that can run from 100 to 300 Mbps downstream.
• 5GUW: In the United States only (for now), another version of 5G uses a high-frequency or millimeter-wave band that can provide up to 1 Gbps, and some carriers call this “ultrawideband.” For that taste, Apple is confusingly showing 5G+; for others, 5GUW.
• Cell/Satellite: The icon on the far left is known from decades of appearance. The number of bars indicates the signal strength. If you have a SIM card and eSIM card or two active eSIM cards, the second icon from the left shows the signal strength for the primary network at the top and the secondary network at the bottom. The dot below the bar indicates the signal strength of the secondary network. With iOS 16/iPadOS 16, Apple improved the “No Service” label when there is no signal to read “SOS” with dots underneath when another cellular network may be available for emergency calls. If you have an iPhone 14 in a country that supports it, the icon on the far right showing a satellite will appear when you turn on Emergency SOS via satellite.
• Wi-Fi: The known Wi-Fi waves show a weak, moderate or strong connection (left). Strangely enough, the middle icon has nothing to do with Wi-Fi performance: it appears when Wi-Fi Calling is turned on and you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network it can work with. The icon on the right, two overlapping chains, indicates that the iPhone is tethered to the Internet. (This includes Wi-Fi for a personal hotspot, Bluetooth, and USB.)

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