Despite its constant push for 5G phones, Verizon appears to be advising people to turn off their phone's 5G connection to preserve battery.
As The Verge reports, in a now-deleted tweet the Verizon Wireless support team on Sunday suggested that "one way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE." Which, of course, means turning off 5G—high-speed mobile technology Verizon has been championing.
When Twitter helpfully pointed out the irony, the support member explained that "It's important that we complete many troubleshooting steps to find the root cause of any issues with speed," adding that the company is "quickly launching more 5G areas, and making updates constantly to improve speeds."
Verizon did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment. Other firms like Samsung and Huawei have addressed the same issue via dedicated support pages, clarifying that more bandwidth requires more power.
Verizon launched its "nationwide" 5G system in October, coinciding with the launch of the iPhone 12 (all four models of which support 5G in the US). Earlier this year, the carrier announced high-speed mobile 5G service in three more cities—Colorado Springs, Colo.; Columbia, S.C.; and Knoxville, Tenn.—bringing its total to more than 60 areas across the country.
In PCMag's tests, Verizon's UWB 5G system—also known as high-band or nationwide 5G—has shown super speeds of more than 2Gbps, but with little coverage. Because of its short range, the network showed only 4% availability in a 26-city test last summer (compared with T-Mobile's 22.5%).