this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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273
Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G. (restofworld.org)
submitted 4 days ago by Tea@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
77 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago (6 children)

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.

[–] piecat@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

Yeah, that's a good point.

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