That's just how the system works. We have the same here in Australia. BUT no-one ever reads the T&C's.
I went from 4G LTE to 5G at no extra cost and some places I see it say 5G+ and I did some speed testing and the speeds aren't great as said it's like 4G speed... in Canada.
5G was not designed as one-size-fits-all thing. It can operate in different spectrums (low band, mid band, high band). Low band probably won't be "faster" but if it is low band standalone then it may be a little bit more power efficient and handle more capacity. If you want "speed" then you may need to search or ask CSP whether C-band, a flaship 5G spectrum, is available in you area.
Didn't read the article. Just sharing an observation, and that is I've noticed I get good reception in places where I got no reception before, such as inside some restaurants we visit frequently. The evidence in my case is side-by-side with my wife in one of these restaurants after I got a new iPhone and she was still on her old iPhone and I noticed my phone was indicating 5G at the time. Aside from maybe not getting what the phone indicates you are getting, speeds have been fine for me for a long time on older technologies. It is reception that matters (to me) -- that's my point. FWIW, this is on T-Mobile, and I know there is more than on flavor of 5G on T-Mobile. I can't remember which flavor was being indicated in the restaurant at the time.
5G does not guarantee a better speed, just the connection to the 5G network. Mine 4G is ~10 Mbps and 5G is ~180 Mbps. Both are sufficient for everything I use, like Netflix. Surprisingly WiFi is ~30 Mbps, while I have 500 Mbps.
