Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Good….I know if my phone switches to 3g for some reason it won’t even download and email. Might as well have no service anyway.
 
2033?? Who still has hardware they are using from that era?
It's NOT just phones:

Cell Modems in smart devices such as embedded adapters for servers (Room temperature sending SMS alerts to I.T. for overheating, failed drives critical to maintaining a certain RAID - sure emails work but off duty those will not be looked at in real time).

now also think Government employees, Gov Security services/teams, Emergency response vehicles - have imbedded tracking systems, backup systems for governments.

UK was probably THE largest and first leader of 3G and 4G across nations when each launched: Vodafone went gusto across Europe, while in Japan the update was rapid but slow on devices initially, worse than what we saw with 5G internationally.

Not everyone NEEDS the 4G/5G data benefits, congestion may not be a thing in the UK with 3G/4G, but forcing a rapid upgrade like what the USA is planning - something not good will happen, a 10yr buffer is great. For everyone.
 
Because funnily enough over here, not everywhere has 4G & 5G coverage yet. And lots of places that do.... the coverage is awful!! Try my hometown Ipswich for example. Woeful coverage by all the networks.

I'm just a few miles north of you near Halesworth. As you probably know, almost all of Suffolk has shockingly poor coverage once outside towns but I didn't realise Ipswich was that bad. The only place I've had a 5G signal in Suffolk is Bury St Edmunds. If it wasn't for WiFi calling I'd never be able to make or receive a call on my mobile from home. I'm lucky if I get 3G occasionally and there's been no sign of an upgrade in the 9 years I've been living here.
 
Too many infrastructure wireless devices are still using 2G/3G.

At the same time, I wish feature phone makers would stop making 2G only handsets. It’s just lazy as we have had 3G feature phones even before smartphones. VoLTE feature phone should be the lowest common denominator for consumers.

Then there’s the greedy carriers, who rather overcrowd their towers so even LTE becomes slower than 3G.

It’s a complex issue. Something basic as VoLTE is not even implemented properly by the top 3 carriers in my country. They are all too lazy in their comfort zones, milking consumers on their legacy infrastructures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: alien3dx
Too many infrastructure wireless devices are still using 2G/3G.

At the same time, I wish feature phone makers would stop making 2G only handsets. It’s just lazy as we have had 3G feature phones even before smartphones. VoLTE feature phone should be the lowest common denominator for consumers.

Then there’s the greedy carriers, who rather overcrowd their towers so even LTE becomes slower than 3G.

It’s a complex issue. Something basic as VoLTE is not even implemented properly by the top 3 carriers in my country. They are all too lazy in their comfort zones, milking consumers on their legacy infrastructures.
yes , telco hardly give you the maxima speed but optima speed. What most of us, getting 2g speed when 3g , speed of 3gx from 3g , speed of 4 when 4g + . So the final 5g , only get 4g+ speed.

There is a limit user on each tower .

The main if need good speed is hybrid . Wifi from fibre open to public and telco same times.
 
2033 is way to far ahead especially for 2G, that should have ben turned off a few years ago let alone 2033. I'd say 2026 is more than generous enough to kill both.
 
why not now 4g and 5g is enough why wait over 10 years
5G NSA isn’t really 5G, more like 4.5G. 5GSA wont really be out properly until 22/23 at the earliest and even then the smaller cells required for 5GSA will take some time to deliver the benefits to IoT.

As some have said, IoT devices were designed for GPRS/UMTS modems for some time, so would need replacing.
 
This was announced by the British government, so it’s probably not true! but if it is I’m sure they will have a ‘party’ to celebrate it.


I’ll get my coat…
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Odysee
Geeze, they still have 2G operating?? And they'll keep 2G operating for another 11-12 years? Australia turned off 2G over 3 years ago in mid-2018.
 
Actually most people do. The average age of cars is Europe is 10.7 years. Remove the rich countries and you easily get 15 to 17 years. And average age doesn't mean "the average age at which people get rid of their car". It means "the average age that they are at currently". So a car people bought 10 years ago is very likely to still be (barely) rolling around in 10 years.
Well you omitted that I keep cars that long myself, but also brought up an alternative point I really wasn't discussing. On that subject however, I doubt that most 2nd and 3rd owners even activate or use all of the features on their older cars anyway, so on the topic of this thread, I doubt they would notice / care about the loss of those cellular networks.

I get that spectrum is limited and that technology moves on, just is frustrating that when it does and makes some older devices people may use, or feature additions to bigger devices unusable / junk.

I wonder how many people actually still use an iPhone 3G and the battery last longer than 35 minutes. o_O
The iPhone 4 and many later devices also used 3G, so these shutdowns will not just limit the 3G model.
 
I wonder how many people actually still use an iPhone 3G and the battery last longer than 35 minutes. o_O
There are quite a few pople who are still using old cell phones for just... (holding breath)... voice telephone services. Not everybody wants Internet with the phone and with a fresh battery these devices can have insane stand-by times, like a week and more.
It is crazy how quickly technology becomes "outdated" these days, forcing people to switch to new devices that not necessarily are wanted, sporting the wrong or too many unused features.
 
Well you omitted that I keep cars that long myself, but also brought up an alternative point I really wasn't discussing. On that subject however, I doubt that most 2nd and 3rd owners even activate or use all of the features on their older cars anyway, so on the topic of this thread, I doubt they would notice / care about the loss of those cellular networks.
That is just a very steep assumption on your part. For some that may be true. But I am pretty sure that the majority of owners of older cars also want to use as many as possible of the features they come with. In some cases it could even mean that the usability of the car is delimited when features are not available anymore.
Vintage cars will be a thing for models up to the 90's anyway. Modern cars have so many sensors and electronic parts built in, that that they will be "undrivable" one day because they are not serviceable anymore and you can't replacements for these sensors and computer parts. Sustainability was bad in the old days, but with modern cars you are basically forced to scrap them after a certain time, because they are built way too complicated and depending on current electronics, which can't be replicated in any way anymore, once they are not produced anymore...
 
It seems to be, at least in lower signal 4G areas. Maybe 3G is affected but less so, I at least can use the internet on 3G at those times.


Yeah I was thinking it was down to the frequency, hopefully this does improve 4G/5G.



Yup, I switch to 3G when in need to preserve battery. Also, wasn’t aware apple removed the 3G toggle where 5G is available as someone else mentioned.
That’s going to be annoying in short term future
I'm not saying your lying but it doesn't make sense. Unless you are comparing higher frequency 4G like 2.4GHz+ to lower frequency 700MHz 3G. But on the same frequency 4G is superior in every way to 3G.
 
our country this month last 3g. I don't know why the hype of 5G . i don't need one.I have fibre. 4G on outside enough. if the provider really provide 4g+ speed, everybody should happy enough
The part you are missing is the radio spectrum is extremely limited so using every MHz efficiently is very important. 5G is about 20% more efficient at transmitting data than 4G which is massively more efficient than 3G.

Moving to 5G allows the most efficient use of the spectrum and in your particular case you might not need need the increased speeds but as a whole everyone benefits from more efficient transmission of data. More and more devices will be relying on cellular networks and that will need to maximize bps/Hz.

Further 5G features improvements in latency which for me is very welcome. The mmWave stuff is not really that useful in my opinion.

Modest increases in max UL/DL are the least interesting parts of 5G, the latency and efficiency improvements are far more important.

It's a similar case with 802.11ax WiFi, the increases in max UL/DL are modest but the efficiency and simultaneous transmission of data to different devices is far, far more important and results in serious real world increases in performance.
 
There are quite a few pople who are still using old cell phones for just... (holding breath)... voice telephone services. Not everybody wants Internet with the phone and with a fresh battery these devices can have insane stand-by times, like a week and more.
It is crazy how quickly technology becomes "outdated" these days, forcing people to switch to new devices that not necessarily are wanted, sporting the wrong or too many unused features.
There's very good reasons to move to VoLTE and 4G. Keeping the old tech going really compromises telecommunications. VoLTE and VoNR will be a standard for a long time moving forward.
 
That is just a very steep assumption on your part. For some that may be true. But I am pretty sure that the majority of owners of older cars also want to use as many as possible of the features they come with. In some cases it could even mean that the usability of the car is delimited when features are not available anymore.
Vintage cars will be a thing for models up to the 90's anyway. Modern cars have so many sensors and electronic parts built in, that that they will be "undrivable" one day because they are not serviceable anymore and you can't replacements for these sensors and computer parts. Sustainability was bad in the old days, but with modern cars you are basically forced to scrap them after a certain time, because they are built way too complicated and depending on current electronics, which can't be replicated in any way anymore, once they are not produced anymore...
Steep assumption?

I am talking about features that require a cellular phone or data subscription. This is often something people skip due to them being older, and essentially better replaced by the modern smartphone they are already paying for.

Why pay for a cellular service for your car, when it is limited to being used in only that vehicle, and, when the features can essentially be outpaced by a modern (as compared to the older car) smartphone?

Even with that, some of us older car owners do enjoy updating these features and do pay for data plans to keep features alive though I am confident we are in the minority. For most, it's far easier to stick a phone holder to the dash / windshield and just use a smartphone.

Sadly in the case of my 2016 Audi, Google already pulled the plug on Google Earth when the car was ~4 years old anyway. Have totally learned that relying on 3rd party services is a bad idea overall. Especially when the provider is google. :( .
 
Actually most people do. The average age of cars is Europe is 10.7 years. Remove the rich countries and you easily get 15 to 17 years. And average age doesn't mean "the average age at which people get rid of their car". It means "the average age that they are at currently". So a car people bought 10 years ago is very likely to still be (barely) rolling around in 10 years.

Yeah but everyone on here is rich and upgrades to the newest Tesla and Pro Max each year, or at least they say they do ?
 
The part you are missing is the radio spectrum is extremely limited so using every MHz efficiently is very important. 5G is about 20% more efficient at transmitting data than 4G which is massively more efficient than 3G.

Moving to 5G allows the most efficient use of the spectrum and in your particular case you might not need need the increased speeds but as a whole everyone benefits from more efficient transmission of data. More and more devices will be relying on cellular networks and that will need to maximize bps/Hz.

Further 5G features improvements in latency which for me is very welcome. The mmWave stuff is not really that useful in my opinion.

Modest increases in max UL/DL are the least interesting parts of 5G, the latency and efficiency improvements are far more important.

It's a similar case with 802.11ax WiFi, the increases in max UL/DL are modest but the efficiency and simultaneous transmission of data to different devices is far, far more important and results in serious real world increases in performance.
but it take few year till android company to create mass product first . And 5g iphone not suitable on some country also.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.