this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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268
Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G. (restofworld.org)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

5g is a lot more capable and flexible compared to older generations. The main one is a massive increase in capacity, for the same frequency allocations. Compounding with this is that it can be directional. This allows several phones to use the exact same channel simultaneously, so long as they are positioned at different angles to the tower.

5g also uses more frequency bands, allowing even more data to be moved around. Unfortunately, 2g has most of the lower frequencies, higher frequencies carry more data, but have less penetration into buildings.

Finally, 5g allows for priority and context awareness. E.g. the police can have their phones prioritised, or VoIP calls given priority over video streaming. It can also trade bandwidth for range. This allows a tower to either reach further to cover a larger area, or focus down, to provide more bandwidth locally.

In theory 5g could have a similar range to 2g. However, that rarely happens. It requires it using the lower frequencies, that 2g currently uses, and well as dropping its data rate to improve range. Most of the time it's optimised for shorter range, and more towers using higher frequencies. This gives impression of a far smaller range. But give a huge increase is available bandwidth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the real answer! If it can be directional, presumably this would be good for positioning as well?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

To an extent. You are still talking 20-40 degree windows, but triangulation is definitely possible. I'm not sure if it's used like that however.