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Exactly what aspects of 3G mobile protocols are we supposed to think about when we spare this hypothetical thought, except for the fact that they’re finally being retired in the US in favor of more spectrally efficient ones?
It is best to never become emotionally attached to a communications protocol.
And it’s the Verge, there are no thoughts to spare.
All those car surveillance “services” will presumably go dark…

3G still seems to offer much longer range than 4G does, while the towers in my area area all shared locations (3G/4G/5G) I get an extra few miles of service once it drops down to 3G.
That’s probably due to the frequency and the position of the antennas at the top of the tower, not due to the protocol. Which is a big part of the reason for shutting it down. Once those 3G antennas are removed they can be replaced with 5G antennas that will provide more/faster capacity using the frequencies and antenna positions that are currently being used inefficiently by old 3G hardware.
Not only are they “telling” people, they are literally sending them free replacement flip phones, unsolicited. These phones operate a lot like the old ones, but work with the new cellular technology.
My in-laws held out until December, when the letters from Verizon became more insistent. We thought they were going to hold out until the phones stopped working, but the letters did get their attention, and they finally gave in. But you’re right, there will be a few who don’t. Sorry, not sorry.
I’m surprised there are actual “phone” holdouts as the batteries die, newer models are better and it’s easy enough to replace a phone. I would expect hold outs in alarm systems, dishes, backup call home, etc that are proprietary and harder to replace. I noticed they even mentioned voting machines in the summary.
I live in a rural area and my phone often says it”s connected to a 3G network. Does this mean those areas will no longer have cell service.

I live in a rural area and my phone often says it”s connected to a 3G network. Does this mean those areas will no longer have cell service.
It depends on who the towers you’re connecting to belong to. There are some apps that will tell you that, e.g. [google.com] (did not test) … phones used to just tell you this stuff

I live in a rural area and my phone often says it”s connected to a 3G network. Does this mean those areas will no longer have cell service.
As TFS says, the frequencies (and the cell sites) wil be repurposed for 4G or 5G, so, after a small disruption* those sites will go 4G VoLTE or 5G VoNR
* The MultiMIMO 4G antena pannels and the 5G MassiveMIMO antena pannels are huge compared to antena pannels for the same frequencies in 2G and 3G, therefore, one has to dismount the old antenas before putting in the new ones, even if the rest of the equipment is already installed inside the shelter.

I live in a rural area and my phone often says it”s connected to a 3G network. Does this mean those areas will no longer have cell service.
What you phone is telling you is about as valid as the number of bars that it reports as “reception quality”.
It gives the user a warm fuzzy feeling that is comparable to peeing your pants in public.

I am amazed at how many new cars, less than 5 years old, including some 2021 models are listed as having 3G. I be pissed if my 3 year old car lost connectivity
Go to your dealer, maybe they can swap the 3G modem module of your car to a 4G or 5G module, or, failing that, they can help you move to some regional carrier that still supports 3G in your area.
Partial list here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… [wikipedia.org]
LOL yea no one’s making a 5g modem for a 5 year old Nissan get real
Imagine a fifteen year old Nissan, which should be a reasonable longevity for a new car. Say it was 1xRTT by today’s standards.
Getting factory electronics is a disastrous proposition these days.
My decade old Honda has a bluetooth stereo that takes 90 seconds to pair with any of my phones.
My plow truck has a $29 Walmart head from 2020 which pairs within three seconds of ignition. The Honda formfactor is impossibly non-DIN so it’s thay or an aux input. Thank goodness I didn’t wind up with the TomTom version
Why not if there is a market? There’s millions of Nissans.
that’s not the market, the only obvious solution is to buy a new Nissan, not like your transmission is going to last that long anyway, that’s why they make them disposable
With my last Nissan it was probably easier to change the transmission than the headlight bulbs, so that doesn’t sound surprising. At some point Nissan started to produce junk and it has all been downhill from there – or at least I will never buy one again.
You can replace transmission too, besides how are you mistreating your transmission to kill it in 5 years?
oh you must have never heard of the famous Nissan CVT’s which have an average lifespan of 60K miles
3G only or 4G with 3G support and/or fallback mode?
The latter I found pretty common but yeah, if a new car is 3G only thats pretty egregious

including some 2021 models are listed as having 3G.
I’m wondering how much of that is just useless marketing and whether they actually have 3G connectivity or they just substituted a friendly name for “cellular connectivity”.
That said this seems like a very American problem. Several manufacturers are on the record saying that the features present in the USA cars are not present in the same models internationally. Incidentally the article I read about it showed a lovely “SOS” button in a car. I’ve never seen one.
Tesla switched from 3G to 4G in May of 2015. Older cars could be upgraded at customer expense for $200 at that time. I don’t know if they changed that when the network shut down (AT&T, so back in February), as I got one of the very first with 4G, and I expect many owners paid for the upgrade already. I use the network on my Tesla constantly, as I expect most owners do.
Meanwhile the Nissan Leaf switched from 2G to 3G in the 2016 model and 4G in 2019 (if my searching gave the right info). I had a used
I’d be pissed that my car has cellular connectivity in the first place.
You shouldn’t be. The automotive manufacturing industry drags its technological heels at a notoriously glacial pace. These are the dullards to whom putting fins/chrome/vinyl/fake-wood-panels on a car counts as a year-over-year “improvement.” In fact… there are STILL makes, models, and trim levels out there on which even CarPlay and Android Auto are not yet available. Hell, if I didn’t know for a fact that they’d already been dragged… kicking and screaming all the way… this far; I wouldn’t be surpris

They want to force everyone to 5G.
They already have, what do you think all that vaccination stuff was about? Next thing you’ll experience is a craving to install Windows 11 over the top of your Linux desktop.

They want to force everyone to 5G. There are still huge rural areas in the MIdwest where you cannot get any service at all. The phone companies lie in their teeth to the government about how good their coverage is. This is all in aid of providing services that they can charge extra for.
This is false, as both TFS and TFA say, you can still use a 4G phone, as long as said 4G phone supports VoLTE, so no “forcing everyone to 5G”.
If you are so desperate to cling to 2G or 3G, or you want service in rural areas, you can move to a regional carrier that still offers it, like C-Spire, US-Cellular, Celluar One.
there is life beyond AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
A list is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… [wikipedia.org]

If you are so desperate to cling to 2G or 3G, or you want service in rural areas, you can move to a regional carrier that still offers it,
No, you can’t. At the very least, the three you named shutdown(or are in the process) 3g. Out of the ~10 I checked, only one wasn’t shutting down 3g.
Lol, golf clap.
They want to force everyone to 5G.
I love the fact you write this as if it’s some conspiracy. In other news, website makers want to force everyone to use modern web browsers.
Also, 4G will be available for a while. Probably at least the next decade, maybe two, after all, current 5G standards build upon 4G, they’re not the ground up overhauls that 2/3G to 4G was.

Also, 4G will be available for a while. Probably at least the next decade, maybe two, after all, current 5G standards build upon 4G, they’re not the ground up overhauls that 2/3G to 4G was.
They don’t just build upon them they use the same modulation.
Probably at least the next decade, maybe two, after all, current 5G standards build upon 4G, they’re not the ground up overhauls that 2/3G to 4G was.
4G LTE is Long Term Evolution of 3G pretty much. Also EHSPA which is an Evolved version of High Speed Packet Access, a distinctly 3G flavoured piece of tech.

Because they are busy installing 5G instead of providing service where they are supposed to at 3G or 4G levels.
What do you mean “supposed”? Either the network is 3G, 4G, or 5G. Also 4G LTE is not going away.

Because they are busy installing 5G instead of providing service where they are supposed to at 3G or 4G levels.
What do you mean “supposed”?
Probably “what they claim they have deployed” since we all know coverage maps are dirty lies.
Almost as if critical infrastructure should not be profit driven.

They want to force everyone to 5G.
No. They want to force everyone off 3G. You can use several other technologies instead, including multiple generations of 4G.
After all, a non-VoLTE 4G phone can browse the internet, do OTT voice and video calls, either using propiertary Apps or SIP. All that brings revenue to the operator.
The only reason I can think of for suspending the lines of people with non-VoLTE phones is nomething regulatory, either with 911 access, or with compliance with contractual terms (your contract says you have both voice and data)…
If slashdoters can think of any other, please let me know.
I want to say (and i definitely could be remembering wrong) but that style of phone was from an era when 4G did not do all the cellular stationkeeping so it used the 3G side not just for voice but some other functions as well.
Also even if that were not the case it’s a weird spot and probably unpredictable to just shut off some of a customers service and leave other aspects up, will generate a weird grey billing area, probably a few customer service calls or visits, it just makes a mess. I can understand ju

The only reason I can think of for suspending the lines of people with non-VoLTE phones is nomething regulatory, either with 911 access, or with compliance with contractual terms (your contract says you have both voice and data)…
Not just those with non-VoLTE phones. There were a lot of people with newer 4G VoLTE phones being kicked as well.
Itâ(TM)s simple. They get to retire the 3G equipment, software, maintenance contracts and of course, refarm spectrum. That stuff is *incredibly* expensive. Huge cost savings to be had, and of course refarming the spectrum to 4G and 5G adds sorely needed capacity on those networks.
Itâ(TM)s a net positive for everyone, unless your name is Nokia or Qualcomm.

some connected cars and trucks have been pushed offline
If I was buying a used vehicle, the sunsetting of 3G would save me the trouble of ripping the cellular crap out of the car. Just sayin’…
On a similar note, I have to wonder how many 3G-connected vehicles out there are still on-lease. The lessors may lose the ability to brick the vehicles for non-payment.
Was forced to abandon a modern high end phone I had for less than year which of course supported LTE / VoLTE over the 3G shutdowns. In the US it isn’t just like there is an industry standard devices need to support. Each carrier is going around requiring each vendor to capitulate to their demands or no VoLTE for you effectively preventing the device from working on the carriers network.
LTE has been around for a while and VoLTE is just software. A lot of people were fucked over by this that didn’t need to

Was forced to abandon a modern high end phone I had for less than year which of course supported LTE / VoLTE over the 3G shutdowns.
And when was this and what phone were you using? Most of the major carriers announced well ahead of time that 3G was shutting in 2022 and Verizon was the last of the big 3.

In the US it isn’t just like there is an industry standard devices need to support.
Yes. 3G was first available in 2001 and I am not aware that there is an industry standard to support technology from 20 years ago indefinitely as I do not expect video card manufacturers to keep making AGP (1997) cards.

Each carrier is going around requiring each vendor to capitulate to their demands or no VoLTE for you effectively preventing the device from working on the carriers network
What are you talking about when you talk about “capitulate”? The entire industry has moved on from 1G to 2G to 3G to 4G

And when was this and what phone were you using? Most of the major carriers announced well ahead of time that 3G was shutting in 2022 and Verizon was the last of the big 3.
It was a high end Asus Android phone released in 2019 with 6GB ram, LTE, Full HD HDR display..etc.
Nobody announced modern high end 4G phones with VoLTE would stop working because US carriers simply refuse to whitelist them.

In the US it isn’t just like there is an industry standard devices need to support. Each carrier is going around requiring each vendor to capitulate to their demands or no VoLTE for you effectively preventing the device from working on the carriers network.
Yes. 3G was first available in 2001 and I am not aware that there is an industry standard to support technology from 20 years ago indefinitely
You misunderstand. The problem is carriers are whitelisting devices instead of relying on interoperable standards. My commentary has nothing to do with 3G.

as I do not expect video card manufacturers to keep making AGP (1997) cards.
Imagine getting a newly released video card and plugging it into your 2 year old motherboard only to have the video card not work no

It was a high end Asus Android phone released in 2019 with 6GB ram, LTE, Full HD HDR display..etc .Nobody announced modern high end 4G phones with VoLTE would stop working because US carriers simply refuse to whitelist them.
I assume your phone was the ZenFone 6 based on the description and whose hardware is generally incompatible with most of the world [kimovil.com] especially since there are multiple hardware revisions. It was compatible with T-mobile 4G LTE [xda-developers.com] only after a software update.

You misunderstand. The problem is carriers are whitelisting devices instead of relying on interoperable standards. My commentary has nothing to do with 3G.
No the real problem is not all phones support all frequencies and bands. There are standards but your phone simply did not support most of them. The best version of the hardware supported less than half the frequencies. A Samsung Galaxy S10 [kimovil.com] is an Android p
Yes. 3G was first available in 2001 and I am not aware that there is an industry standard to support technology from 20 years ago indefinitely
That’s bullshit man.
4G was only released in limited areas in 2010 in the US, with significant coverage following later.
3G stuff which was state of the art in practice if you wanted to be able to actually use it most places was probably superseded a decade ago maybe less.
For phones, who cares. For equipment, a 10 year support window isn’t very long.

For phones, who cares. For equipment, a 10 year support window isn’t very long.
Please show where in the industry standard where they are obliged to support 10 year old technology forever especially 10 year old phones are definitely old of warranty by now.
Help me I can’t find a single store that will sell me whale oil for my lamps anymore! How will I ever illuminate my home after dark?

Help me I can’t find a single store that will sell me whale oil for my lamps anymore! How will I ever illuminate my home after dark?
Good fucking grief is it too fucking much to ask people to bother to read before posting?
I had a Asus phone first released in the middle of fucking 2019. 6GB ram, LTE, Full HD HDR display..etc. Had it phone for less than a year on 4G LTE before I was forced to ditch it and get another one over the 3G shutdown. If the phone isn’t in the carriers explicit whitelist no VoLTE for you.
I remember getting the first email from Verizon about a 3G sunset and yeah, that was during the Obama admin.
Our company had around 200 3G data modems across the country, we had made plans to swap but even by that time they had pushed the date back. Around 2017/2018 our VZW rep said it was “for super real this time” and we actually did the investment to LTE.
Of course the 3G date came and went by that point and yes the investment and time it took to replace all those devices was a bit painful but in the end the service was way significantly better (and cheaper even!), even on a CAT1 level LTE device. Better bandwidth, line stability and even service where we had flaky 3G areas where we had to use longer antennas and boosters worked better under LTE.

Why do right leaning people use the word cuck so much? Something must be on their minds.
The usual reason [washingtonpost.com], whatever they accuse others of is something they’re doing
At my company we have several employees that are using a OnePlus 7 pro. Back when we bought them, Verizon couldn’t figure out how to add them to their network so their database still says we had older phones in use. They disabled all of those lines last Tuesday and still haven’t managed to turn them back on because their system is still so broken that they can’t change them over. Currently we’re stuck waiting for them to mail new sim cards that will maybe fix the problem.
We get 0 compensation for having all
I have never gotten a phone from Verizon that they did not have in their database. EVER
I have even talked to a few Verizon employees that test out the “latest & greatest” devices as their “daily driver phone” before the general public can even buy those devices.
That means those phone models are already loaded in the database so the internal systems can properly provision the device in the network.
So you are either a VERY LUCKY PERSON that should have bought lottery tickets instead of phones…or you ar
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