this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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I haven't even bought a 5G phone yet. My carrier keeps threatening to cut 4G coverage in various areas, and has already axed 3G entirely, rendering large swathes of otherwise perfectly functional devices useless. So far my 4G Moto Z still works. For now.
At this point my conspiracy opinion that the constant "generation" changes are mostly to just force people to buy/lease new phones and devices. Even pokey old 4G has always been more than fast enough for all of my mobile internet activities. Hell, even 3G was.
I have no less than four otherwise flawlessly functional phones in a desk drawer that just won't work with my cell carrier because they've either turned off 3G or discontinued the specific 4G bands those devices need.
I live in a medium size city with extensive Verizon coverage. 5g here is still dogshit. It's always slower than LTE and even though towers are everywhere, my phone is constantly switching back and forth.
mmwave 5g or "5g"? On T-Mobile near me I get anywhere from 200Mbps down to over gigabit down depending on the location.
A few areas are the shitty 5g that's essentially 4g+. But most areas around me have really good coverage with pretty insane speeds.
How would anyone know? Why is it even possible to "fake" 5G? Just makes everyone that doesn't know about it to just complain and think it sucks.
On T-Mobile shitty 5g is just called 5g in the top next to your signal strength. The mmwave 5g is called 5g uc. Every carrier does something different.
What percentage of people use 3g only phones? If it's 1%, does it make sense to keep those services running just for those people?
It's not necessarily phones. It's trackers, monitoring devices, laptops, access points, and tablets that all run over 3G bands.
Great! You can get 4g/5g versions of those devices because, again, the world doesn't owe the 1% of users services
Older Kindles. Cars
It's still a small number of users no matter how many use cases you list. There are newer Kindles and newer cars. 3g being turned off is inevitable no matter how many old devices are in existence.
It's not just for that. 3G isn't that overloaded. In my area I get 1-3Mbps on 4G LTE but around 20Mbps on 3G HSPA+.
It's not overloaded because fewer people use it, so it costs more to run those services for less benefit
In the US almost none, the networks are being shut down.
I totally agree with you that generation changes are either currently or going to be used as a form of planned obsolescence. I reckon that within 10 years or so we’ll have sub generation types (things 6.5G) that will force people to buy new devices.
I was forced to upgrade since i was still rocking a 3g phone and my area switched to 5g. The phone company gave me a free Pixel6 since it wasnt my choice to upgrade. Maybe if you hold out long enough you'll just get a free upgrade. Though it was a double edge sword, since they tried to up my monthly bill since i was "upgraded" to "premium data". I had to fight that and still ended up paying a few bucks more than previously, but better than what they tried to charge me.
As a person living in a densely populated city of London, I don't want 6G, I need 10G and I need it yesterday. There's no conspiracy, there's an obvious and objective reality.
5G was made for your usecase...
5G is not enough. It was too late to arrive. And I can't imagine how bad it is in cities in Asia, where density is even higher.
No, i mean, it was made to better handle 100s of concurrent streams to the same tower.
I know, but it's not enough these days.