2d ago

Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G.

restofworld.org Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G

Global leap to 4G and 5G would cut off phone access for millions of vulnerable people.

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.

Technology @lemmy.zip

Tea @programming.dev

2d ago

Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G.

restofworld.org /2025/shutting-down-2g-networks-phones-obsolete/

13 0

You're viewing a single thread.

77 comments

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.
  
  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
  
  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!

77 comments