this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
267 points (97.5% liked)
Technology
64937 readers
4330 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Gonna be honest, it's been a while since I've been out to the country. I just saw most carriers shut down 3G in 2022. Time flies and all that.
Also now that I think about it, we may have been installing 4G LTE modems on our pumps lately. That customer only buys a few systems a year.
I wonder too, say 3G gets totally shut down in the US. Will new phones still be able to connect to it if I'm traveling outside the US? I was bopping around some small islands in the Pacific last year and was heavily relying on 3G for things like maps.
Yes, as long as the phone physically supports the 3G frequencies, you will be able to connect to it when you leave the US. Even though the carrier is here or not broadcasting it, I do not see why the physical modems would no longer be supporting it. At least for a good while.