Global leap to 4G and 5G would cut off phone access for millions of vulnerable people.
- Telecom companies aim to profit from the 2G-to-5G transition as governments worldwide face pressure to free up mobile spectrum.
- Vietnam is the latest country to shut down 2G by offering free 4G phones to the poor.
- India and South Africa have expressed concern that the strategy would cut off phone access for millions of vulnerable people.
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You will be surprised how many old people rely on health monitoring devices that use 2G to send basic data.
Not just old people. I had a heart monitor a couple years ago that’s only made for 2G.
Alright maybe I’m getting old but that’s not the point.
When I was visiting the Caribbean they also had a lot of 2G infrastructure still operating.
It sounds like there’s a really big market opportunity for somebody to make a portable transceiver that converts 2G and 3G signals into 5G…
Really really difficult to do that at scale. You don’t want random companies making cell signal transceivers.
You’d be better off just replacing the 2g transceivers entirely.
While I agree with you in principle, that’s a hard sell to somebody with an embedded 2G medical device.
You don’t want random companies making cell signal transceivers.
Setting “companies” aside, I don’t see why it couldn’t be some sort of DIY project. Like, a small computer with a both a 2G and 5G modem, a set of antennas for each, and some middleware…
In fact, there are some phones that support both networks… So why couldn’t a spare phone be used? They technically already have all the hardware to make it work.
I’m not sure there would be an advantage. The signals are very different. That might be approximately equal to building a new one.
A big blocker that the article surprisingly doesn’t talk about is tons of IoT stuff that uses 2G and 3G. Stuff like alarm systems, emergency phones, street light control, cars etc. Here in Sweden there was recently a report that thousands of elevators have emergency phones using 2G and 3G, and if the network is shut down you would no longer be allowed to use those elevators. And since 2018 all new cars in the EU has to have eCall, which alerts emergency services on a crash. Many of these use 2G and 3G, and if it stops working the car won’t pass inspection so you’ll no longer be allowed to drive it.
I have a feeling we’re going to regret a lot of the “From 201x all new cars have to have ibuttfuck.” It’s like paying to be assimilated by the goddamn Borg.
We switched off 3G this year in the UK and my brothers phone stopped being able to make calls. He was using a 6 year old high-end Android phone, but it was from just before the cutoff where you could turn on VoLTE (calls over 4G).
Thankfully, I had a spare phone from the next year after that to hand him, and that one could work with some hidden menu (the type you type into your dialer) hacking.
Why couldn’t you turn off 3G on that old phone via that same hidden menu? Or how come the phone didn’t even recognize that it can fall back to 2G…
Due to marketing b*******, most things labeled as 3G are actually 2G.So networks don’t support both two and three g. Then things that are actually 3G like hspda and L.T.E are marketed as four g , so it’s just very confusing between all of it. They want to shut down the 2G.Networks that are edge and gsm.And they want to shut down the one g network that’s cdma. Depending on your service that could be marketed as 123 or even four g.
2G is also gone.Edit: it’s not gone just yet. Not sure why the phone didn’t try to fall back to 2G.https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/coverage-and-speeds/3g-switch-off/
The old phone was a couple years into 4G existing but before we started to send voice over it.
I assume it just wasn’t in the OS-level code. It only went up to Android 11. We could have tried LineageOS but that would have required a bunch of work including wiping the phone.
Either way, we checked and the option just wasn’t there.
Were they / are they on the 3 network?
If so, that’s why because 3 has never had a 2G network at all ;)
That must be it!
alt roms often add support for volte if the phone supports 4G, because it’s just a software thing
alt roms often add support for volte if the phone supports 4G, because it’s just a software thing
I’m in a recovery group and someone shared how dangerous 5G was and that they have to move again because there is too much 5G in their area…. I’m still dumbfounded.
Recovery from brain injury?
/sorry
They don’t want to. Stingray devices force a phone to fall back on 2G so they can spy on it.
Well 2g is good because it reaches be further doesn’t it? Say if you’re in the wilderness, there’s a slim chance 2G might work
I live outside of a big city in the UK. Many times I can ONLY get 2G.
the 5g standard includes many frequencies, including long range 2g-like ~400Mhz ones
subsidize 4G and 5G devices and shut off 3G and just leave 2G alone for a while. It’s not like it takes up that much bandwidth. A couple of hundred kilohertz is not going to make a difference on 5G.
You can get like 5 or 10 megahertz off of 3G, which actually would be something worth pulling off and moving to 5G. But the couple hundred kilohertz on 2G is just not going to make that much of a difference.
There’s a lot of hidden cost associated with supporting legacy features/standards/technology
Do they have different frequencies? Require different antennas?
Are there cost implications for radios / amplifiers? Do ASICs support only newer modes? How much obsoleted / legacy HW is required?
And that’s just from a manufacturer standpoint.
Are more licenses required? Or other regulatory impacts?
Yeah, that’s a good point.
I think a lot of rural areas in the US still rely on 3G. I’ve definitely seen my phone switch to it out in the sticks
I also know for a fact some of our systems at work that pump liuqid nitrogen still use 3G modems for communicating data
What carrier is this? I know for a fact that T-Mobile has shut down their 3G network and I thought AT&T and Verizon did as well, but I can’t swear to that. I know for a fact that AT&T has already shut down their 2G network though.
Anywhere where a 3G signal would be used, 2G will be used if the 3G is not available.
what benefits does 5g offer over 2g?
lower range. oh you said benefits?
Higher bandwidth
[Not Serious] 3 numbers more.
Ah, well, my G goes to 11
The “g” stands for generation. So it’s the 5th iteration of the technology versus the 2nd iteration. Whilst there are many improvements (speed, capacity, security etc) there are some negatives. (I believe mainly to do with signal penetration - i.e. getting a signal in basements, stone wall houses, being behind objects etc.)
Where I’m currently staying I have: 2G, edge, 4G and 5G signals available.
Obviously Internet speed and call quality, plus there are many good technical changes under the hood, such as proper isolation of calls etc.
I think it handles congestion better and saves energy for the cell tower. It’s a good choice for crowded city centres, near university campuses and train stations where many people frequent
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5g > 2g if g is positive
Aktchually g gets simplified so it’s 5 > 2 for any value
What if g is zero?
Zero g is only available in special airplanes and in space, so not much of a worry for most people.
Damn it! I was dreaming of one day scrolling Lemmy on a 0g connection. You ruined my dreams and I am sad now.
Well, they shouldn’t turn it off any time soon, just like they don’t turn off analog radio. TV is one I can understand where turning off old methods makes sense, because people upgrade their TVs and use IPTV/SatTV/cable TV much more likely anyway.
You update your TV more than your phone? I don’t feel that’s the regular way of things.
I meant like the elderly might still be using a dumb phone, but not a CRT screen or analog connection.
So is the difference between 2g, 3g, 4g and 5g that they use different channels/frequencies, different communication protocols, or both?
Both, really. There’s been encoding improvements every generation, but they also use different slices of the spectrum.
There’s also changing from circuit to packet switching, which also drastically changes how the handover process works.
tl;Dr - handover in 5G is buggy and barely works. The whole thing of switching from one service area to another in the middle of a call is held together by hopes and dreams.
It’s because they still have human targets out there that are only compatible with 2g. The humans haven’t gotten their 5g implants yet.
Well I got the Covid vaccine. I’m screwed I am 5g already.
