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this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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I don't think anyone's really suggesting we keep 3g in the metro areas. Almost the entirety of the greater Melbourne area has 4g, with a fair chunk having 5g, and I think most major cities in the country have almost complete 4g coverage.
But in the country, there's so many places I've been through, even in the last few months, where I've only had 3g/H+, that I also don't foresee them rolling out 4g to any time soon, let alone the any time this decade. 3g can travel further than 4g, and a lot further than 5g, which means it's all well and good that they've converted all of their 3g towers to also have 4g dishes, but unless they actually build new 4g towers, it's still a net downgrade.
The article points out that consumer phones aren't an issue. Its things like lifts with a 3g fallback for emergencies, with non4g capabikitybthat is the issue.
That's the issue. They havnt planned for anything except consumer devices. Android is now recommending 2g be disabled for security, also, so less devices will try to connect to older network infrastructure over time.
I dont see how the telco vsnt see what devices are connecting and where, given their Sims are linked tons customer when they ping a tower. Surely they can identify the devices if they wanted. It might be there are just too many.
Consumer phones in regional areas are still an issue. As @baku said, 3G has better range than 4G (which has better range than 5G). If someone in the middle of the bush, or on a country road needs to use their 5G phone, they may not have coverage.
I have a friend that had to drive 10km with a cracked skull, ribs and broken arm and leg because he didn’t have coverage on his farm. He now has 3G coverage, but not 4G.
@hitmyspot @Baku
I have a 4G phone. #Optus has been telling me for months it will no longer work when they switch 3G off.
They won’t tell me why though.
it aint LTE
@Taleya
How isn’t it?
Ask your manufacturer.
Basically: if your phone is "4g" but you get told it's gonna get cut off when they tank the 3g network, then that most likely means the phone doesn't support Voice Over Long Term Evolution (volte) ...... it uses 3g for calls.
@Taleya
The Apple Store told me the telcos would be unlikely to upgrade 4g and would probably redeploy the 3G resources to 5G.
My phone does support VoLTE but the Optus infrastructure is crap. It used to drop to 3G calls but no longer. Now it just drops out completely.
I guess it doesn’t matter now because the telcos have realised half of rural Australia would be left with no service and that would be very bad.
I wouldn't listen to an apple store as to what telcos are doing.
3G hasn't closed down yet so your phone should still drop to 3G
@Taleya yeah it should. I have no idea why it stopped.
@Taleya do you mean like for people in the country where all the calls drop to 3G, and in the city dead zones?
Different thing. That's shitty infrastructure
@Taleya Yeah, that’s what I’ve learned. Shitty infrastructure and no intention to improve it.
No VoLTE, probably. A bunch of early 4G phones drop back to 3G to make voice calls.
The issue is two fold. The first devices which don't support 4g, and the second is the loss of coverage with the decommissioning of 3G. That's what my last comment focussed on.
They are replacing 3g coverage with 4g equivalents (low frequency bands) so it shouldn't get worse. And I don't believe there is any other technical advantage to 3g over long distances but I'm no expert..
@vividspecter @Baku
It was suggested to me that they have no intention of deploying old 3G resources to 4G. They will go straight to 5G which is why our 4G phones will no longer work.
They have been sending endless messages that I have to buy a new phone but refuse to say why.
Some 4G phones don't support 4G calling correctly or with all networks.
Check whether your phone actually uses 4G (VoLTE) for calls -- to sort-of test this, make a call while connected to mobile data and note whether the signal meter's 4G indication drops to 3G(H+/HSPA) or something during the call.
A more insidious version of this issue is that some phones do VoLTE just fine, but only use 3G for 000 calls.
Some phones only support VoLTE with some networks. There's a chance that an appropriate firmware upgrade could add support for some network/device combos.
I'll add that some Xiaomi phones need a dialer code in order to enable VoLTE support. It's only with the stock OS (custom ROMs shouldn't be affected).
Yep, this is me. Bought 1 yr vodafone prepaid, after getting reminded to enable VoLTE on my phone (a 2019 model), which I did. But, the phone doesn't actually do VoLTE calls, so come Vodafone's 3g shutdown weeks later I suddenly could no longer make or receive ANY phone calls. Internet/data works fine.
Ended up getting a cheap new phone just so I can make phone calls in an emergency.