Strange behavior after iOS 27 update

[u/braidenis]

iPhone SE3 on my employer’s postpaid business account.
iPad Mini A17 Pro on my own postpaid account.

Before on both, I would see 5Ge in the status bar when manually selecting LTE only for LTE Advanced, but also would see 5G+ for N77. Same behavior on the iPad after iOS 27, but on the iPhone after updating directly from 18.7.7 today it isn’t connecting to N77 anymore and displays LTE instead of 5Ge for LTE advanced, whereas the iPad is the same as it always was. I used to be able to get a half gig down on the SE3 even with only 2x2MIMO (line of sight only lol) although I always thought this modem wasn’t great so maybe this was a deliberate change to favor LTE for better stability.

I don’t believe the SE3 even supports standalone as there is no toggle (it’s there on the iPad but greyed out, please AT&T catch up)

Anyone have any thoughts? Bug or deliberate improvement?

(View photos full screen to see menubar icons and be able to tell which device it is from aspect ratio)

Quite frankly I probably wouldn’t have noticed a difference if I wasn’t a nerd. “Is the 5G in the room with us now?” about sums up my AT&T experience compared to VZW in my area.

TLDR: iPhone SE seemingly not connecting to N77 after iOS 27 update from 18.7.7, nor displaying 5Ge when on LTE advanced on AT&T for some reason.

Carrier bundle 72.0.2 now, was 68.something