Verizon Again Delays Plans to Shut Down 3G Network

[oneMadRssn]

Agreed, but this was the whole point in announcing a shutdown years in advance so other options could be put in place like upgrading hardware to support 4G/5G or fixed line internet. If this was sprung on people with a months notice I would think it was ridiculous, but we've known about a shutdown for years and the writing has been on the wall for probably close to a decade.

What people don't realize is there's actually a huge difference between 2G/3G and 4G/5G and it is time to get rid of the former. I expect 4G to stay around for some time as it doesn't have the same cost/extra system complexity that maintaining a 2G/3G infrastructure does.

The question isn't notice, the question is who pays for it. Say the elevators in the empire state building currently rely on 2G for backup comms. The elevator company installed that module and arranged for a service plan with Verizon and Verizon understood it was for critical safety infrastructure and they charged a high rate accordingly, and now the Empire State Realty Trust now pays those bills to Verizon.

Verizon doesn't want to pay to upgrade those elevators, but neither does the elevator company nor Empire State Realty Trust. Empire State Realty Trust might pay for the upgrade if its included next time they have someone refurbish/replace the elevators, but that might not happen for decades. The elevator company has nothing to do with really, they delivered what was purchased and owe nothing. Plus, the elevator company and Empire State Realty Trust don't care about 2G/3G/4G/5G. It's a safety backup comm, the underlying tech makes no difference. As long as it works, that's all that matters. And they've been paying Verizon for a long time to make sure it works and keeps working. Really, it should be on Verizon to upgrade or subsedize the cost of making these upgrades because they have the most to gain from moving everyone over to 4G/5G.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

Because money.

Take a look at FCC Auction 107 (ongoing). The total is over 75,000,000,000 as of today. Verizon is expected to be bidding big in this auction. It’s possible that the money they were going to spend winding down 3G is being redirected to pay for potential spectrum they are bidding on. Just a thought...

 

[york2600]

Aside from cars, lots of ATMs and similar devices also rely on 3G connectivity.

I'm going to be real annoyed when someone shuts down a cell network and my car stops getting updates. We really have to think of these networks as long term products. Just because your cell phone has a 4 year lifespan at best, doesn't mean all the IoT devices should stop working.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

I'm going to be real annoyed when someone shuts down a cell network and my car stops getting updates. We really have to think of these networks as long term products. Just because your cell phone has a 4 year lifespan at best, doesn't mean all the IoT devices should stop working.

The manufacturer should have built in an alternate way for your car to get updates. I’d be willing to bet they did.

 

[dlopan]

Distance.

 

[vladi]

What is 3G anyway? What does that even mean? HSPA+ is 3G protocol labeled as 4G by carriers on their phones. LTE is based of HSPA 3G protocol. HD Voice is 3G technology that's been mislabeled as VoLTE only. The real kicker with VoLTE is that carriers basically hand pick which phone will work and which one will not. They call that process "certification" or in other words pays us so your unlocked phone can be whitelisted for out network. You can use your phone's VoLTE anywhere in the world but when you come to US suddenly your phone is not certified. But that's not all, ATT will not allow your phone HD Voice service because only phones sold through ATT stores are whitelisted. 3G had none of that ****.

 

[ikramerica]

If they shut down 3G but made LTE more robust, that would be fine. As it is, my iPhone 8 needs the 3G network in some LTE dead spots.

 

[EdT]

Why would anyone shut down a network during a pandemic that serves the poorest of people when most people have 0 to no disposable income.

In other news, water is wet.

It's not just the poor. Its anyone who lives a distance (and in my case that distance isn't all that far) from a major metro area. I don't have 4G (reliably) at my house, and I am less than 15 miles from a metro area of 700,000, and not far from a major highway. Interstate 80 runs east/west thru the state and if new towers go up its either along that interstate or in the smaller towns along it.

 

[zorinlynx]

so Apple can remove a headphone jack but Verizon will alienate people with 3G phones? They know EXACTLY how many are out there, they could incentivize those to upgrade, but that would cost money, Verizon is cheap ...
BTW, I do have VZW and there are still multiple spots across CA with 3G or no reception ...

As a carrier you really don't want to do anything to disrupt customers.

"You're going to need a new phone."

"Well, if I need a new phone ANYWAY, I might as well shop around to see what the other carriers have."

"NO NO NO--" *door slam*

They have to carefully weigh the cost of customers using older equipment jumping ship against the cost of keeping the CDMA network going. Especially when they are low usage customers that are nice solid income without much load on the network.

 

[zorinlynx]

It's not just the poor. Its anyone who lives a distance (and in my case that distance isn't all that far) from a major metro area. I don't have 4G (reliably) at my house, and I am less than 15 miles from a metro area of 700,000, and not far from a major highway. Interstate 80 runs east/west thru the state and if new towers go up its either along that interstate or in the smaller towns along it.

Verizon doesn't want to lose customers, so it's likely they will upgrade those towers for better coverage before shutting down the 3G network.

 

[jz0309]

As a carrier you really don't want to do anything to disrupt customers.

"You're going to need a new phone."

"Well, if I need a new phone ANYWAY, I might as well shop around to see what the other carriers have."

"NO NO NO--" *door slam*

They have to carefully weigh the cost of customers using older equipment jumping ship against the cost of keeping the CDMA network going. Especially when they are low usage customers that are nice solid income without much load on the network.

they could give those customers a free phone, that would be cheaper than keeping a 3G network running ...

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

Why would anyone shut down a network during a pandemic that serves the poorest of people when most people have 0 to no disposable income.

In other news, water is wet.

Actually, disposable income is up because of stimulus checks.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/944375878

 

[VictoryHighway]

What is 3G anyway? What does that even mean? HSPA+ is 3G protocol labeled as 4G by carriers on their phones. LTE is based of HSPA 3G protocol. HD Voice is 3G technology that's been mislabeled as VoLTE only. The real kicker with VoLTE is that carriers basically hand pick which phone will work and which one will not. They call that process "certification" or in other words pays us so your unlocked phone can be whitelisted for out network. You can use your phone's VoLTE anywhere in the world but when you come to US suddenly your phone is not certified. But that's not all, ATT will not allow your phone HD Voice service because only phones sold through ATT stores are whitelisted. 3G had none of that ****.

For Verizon Wireless, 3G means EVDO.

 

[mannyvel]

I'm going to be real annoyed when someone shuts down a cell network and my car stops getting updates. We really have to think of these networks as long term products. Just because your cell phone has a 4 year lifespan at best, doesn't mean all the IoT devices should stop working.

That already happened when 2G networks shut down; older BMWs don't have the BMW SOS stuff anymore. Nobody said they'd last forever. I hope T-Mo is raking in the bucks with their 2G infrastructure, which they didn't shut down AFAIK.

 

[KrispE00]

The day Verizon drops 3G, any iPhone 4 or 4S on it will stop working. The 4S hasn't been sold since September 2014...

They're not exactly ancient, but I don't know anyone still using a phone that old. The people who use the oldest phones I know of are my mom with a 5C and my mother in law with an SE (both are compatible with 4g... not that it matters since both of them use AT&T for a network.)

iPhone 4S came out in Oct 2011. 9 years old is definitely ancient in tech years. If you go by Sep 2014, even 6 years in ancient.

 

[jjudson]

3G is widely used in automation networks — many infrastructure-related. Verizon will have to maintain that system for awhile yet.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Is there any inherent benefit to shutting down their 3G network when plenty of devices still rely on it? I would think there wouldn't be. Plus, I've never appreciated a difference between Verizon's 3G and LTE when it comes to phone calls and SMS.

 

[zesta]

What many people don't understand is that there are non-phone things that rely on the CDMA network.

One of the big examples are all of the systems that sync their time via CDMA. LTE does not provide this service at all, so there is no alternative. This is important in areas that have no decent satellite visibility. One of our NTP servers syncs via CDMA because we cannot get a satellite signal in the facility where it is located.

We have been trying to figure out what we are going to do, so this is very welcome news.

 

[Tea-Aholic]

What is 3G anyway? What does that even mean? HSPA+ is 3G protocol labeled as 4G by carriers on their phones. LTE is based of HSPA 3G protocol. HD Voice is 3G technology that's been mislabeled as VoLTE only. The real kicker with VoLTE is that carriers basically hand pick which phone will work and which one will not. They call that process "certification" or in other words pays us so your unlocked phone can be whitelisted for out network. You can use your phone's VoLTE anywhere in the world but when you come to US suddenly your phone is not certified. But that's not all, ATT will not allow your phone HD Voice service because only phones sold through ATT stores are whitelisted. 3G had none of that ****.

This isn't quite true.

Where I live in Australia, the VoLTE settings need to be baked into the phones firmware for voice calls to be carried over the 4G LTE network.

iPhones can download the carrier files directly from Apple, but for example, a few years back my friend imported a dual SIM Samsung S8+ into Australia from the UAE and we had to flash the Aussie firmware to get VoLTE settings to work.

For that reason, I still think the iPhone has the best implementation of VoLTE. The idea that we had to flash a different firmware is completely ridiculous to me and that is the reason I never recommend other phones to people who aren't technologically inclined - iPhones just work.

 

[bousozoku]

Why would anyone shut down a network during a pandemic that serves the poorest of people when most people have 0 to no disposable income.

In other news, water is wet.

They really don't want anyone to know how much 4G/LTE is not available for their high prices.

SBC/AT&T probably has GPRS (not even EDGE) working in locations where they just don't care to do better for people.

 

[ian87w]

I agree, but people need to understand it's not about consumer cellphones. A lot of legacy devices rely on 2G/3G, which are expensive to replace but critical infrastructure or related to safety.

A few notable examples: elevators, ATMs, security systems. Indeed, related to current events, I wouldn't be surprised if lots of industrial refrigerators being used to store the vaccine have alarms to warn of the temperature rising above a threshold in the event of a power outage that rely on 2G/3G.

I'm all for shutting down 2G and 3G, but we need to make sure all these systems have been retrofitted or upgraded appropriately.

Agree. Many POS systems are still on 2G/3G. This is not about the consumer market, the concern is that plenty of enterprises still relying on legacy devices on 3G.

 

[stevoc921]

Thousands, if not millions of security systems still have 3G communicators for primary or secondary communication. The ones with modular communicators can be simply be upgraded to 4G, others without will need to be replaced.

 

[technole]

I agree, but people need to understand it's not about consumer cellphones. A lot of legacy devices rely on 2G/3G, which are expensive to replace but critical infrastructure or related to safety.

A few notable examples: elevators, ATMs, security systems. Indeed, related to current events, I wouldn't be surprised if lots of industrial refrigerators being used to store the vaccine have alarms to warn of the temperature rising above a threshold in the event of a power outage that rely on 2G/3G.

I'm all for shutting down 2G and 3G, but we need to make sure all these systems have been retrofitted or upgraded appropriately.

ATT shut down 2G in 2016, the amount of people using it were rather small. Band and spectrum isn't unlimited, it needs to be freed up for 5G and beyond.

The benefits far outweigh many legacy devices that could just some upgrade, and many of times they are paying to use the network via a 3rd party modem.

 

[oneMadRssn]

The benefits far outweigh many legacy devices that could just some upgrade, and many of times they are paying to use the network via a 3rd party modem.

Benefit to who?

The companies who own critical infrastructure that relies on 2G/3G such as elevators, POS machines, ATMs, security systems, etc. don't care about 5G. It offers no benefit to them. They'd rather not fix what ain't broken.

The real benefit is to the telcos. They get to more spectrum for 5G, which has capacity for connections, so they get to sell more devices and push consumers to upgrade.

My point is: If Verizon wants to do this, they should pay for (or at least subsidize) the cost of upgrading all those legacy devices. They stand to benefit the most from the switch, so they should put some money behind it.

 

[TheMountainLife]

I've visited a decent amount of datacenters throughout my career and noted there's still a good amount hardware out there that fall back on 3G as well as traffic cameras.

I wish carriers were more interested in truly expanding their network coast to coast instead of drag racing speed tests. I can hold a Discord call driving in the hills from Seattle to the Oregon border no problem but am without service/roaming for an hour on flat I-76/I-80 from Colorado to Nebraska.