Why does my Verizon iphone 5 only say 3G at the top?

My iphone 5 has verizon and i can connect to LTE but when i turn it off it still has the "3G" icon at the top and i thought the iphone 5 was 4g. How do i turn the 4G on?

Added (1). My friends phone said the actual words "4g"on her 4s, but with AT&T. Can i get my phone to actually say 4G?

If you're connected to LTE, you are connected to a 4G network.

You will have 4G LTE on your iphone when there's 4G LTE in your area… No LTE = 3G REV-A default… No 3G REV-A = 2G EDVO default… No 2G EDVO = 1X GPRS default… No 1x… Well… Lol. Your in a dead zone! LMAO!

LTE is 4G

the older less powerful technology, HSPA+, which some wireless companies called 4G (really it was just a enhanced 3G) doesn't work with Verizon.

the reason your friend's phone said 4G is beacuse its on AT&T's HSPA+ network, which isn't as fast as your 4G LTE network.

The 4G on the AT&T 4S is a pseudo-4G. To tell the difference LTE is used to denote 4G service (LTE being the more technical name).

You might not be in an area that has a good 4G LTE signal, so the phone reverts to 3G.

LTE is 4G. So when the iPhone is on a LTE connection it is 4G.

In the case of the AT&T iPhones they use HSPA+ which except on those iPhones are classified as 3G. On them however, back in the 4S days a carrier update makes it say 4G while running on that network.

LTE is 4G. They are the same thing.