I'm going to bet on an extension once they realize how much infra is still on 3G. Power, water, gas, sewage, lots of telemetry and control still uses it. That stuff has a design lifetime of 30 years or more and replacing it or parts of it is very costly.
Yes, that's the point: it didn't work. It won't work again, right now (or in January). Until the cost is manageable, which I think we'll see in a decade or so. But right now I'd bet against it. They might actually go through with it in some remote location and claim victory, or, alternatively they might do it and then roll it back quietly. But 3G isn't going anywhere because some interests trump others. These messages are basically an attempt to convince their paymasters that they are running an efficient ship and to - hopefully - urge some 3G users to finally migrate. But lots of them will simply not be able to.
Infrastructure is always longer lived than it is intended. Next time you're in a London tube station have a look at the cabling and signalling hardware and take a guess at when it was made. 3G gear is brand new by comparison and just as critical to the parties using it.
One of the main excuses for not deploying 5G at the moment is the alleged lack of access to "urban furniture". More precisely , they don't want to pay. Basically they want the people to pay for it with their taxes and the rack up the profits with contracts.
I'm sure this has something to do with that, it would be cheaper for them to replace 3G infrastructure with 5G.
Number one reason 5G deployments are hampered in UK are the nimbys and the anti-5G crazies. Absolutely loads of council applications are turned down due to complaints from locals.. Some of which are not even local at all.
> Power, water, gas, sewage, lots of telemetry and control still uses it.
In the UK specifically? In Ireland at least, most of that stuff seems to be on GPRS; my impression is that it's always been assumed that 3G's days were numbered, so the infra stuff got left on 2G (the GPRS network seems unkillable).
My phone is capable of 3G (and 2G as well, but I haven't used that in a long time) and I've used it all over Europe. It is funny because sometimes I have bad coverage for newer bands and protocols but 3G always saves the day in those cases. In Latin America it was quite useful as well, especially rural areas.
>Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade?
Yes. Total global wireless data traffic went from 58 exabytes per month in 2019 to 154 exabytes per month in 2022 and is predicted to surpass 326 exabytes per month by 2025.
4G cannot handle this. 5G probably cannot handle this rate of growth for much longer.
I've never understood why anybody cares about 5G, what do people do on their phones where bandwidth is a bottleneck? 4G is clearly fast enough for video streaming at resolutions and bitrates that matter for small screens. Online gaming tends to get bottlenecked on lately moreso than bandwidth and anybody who takes it seriously will be playing on consoles and PC. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume most filesharing happens on PC also. So what's the point?
In congested areas 5G should provide significant benefit. I was in London a while ago (using an old-ish 4G-only phone); in busy areas it's really not good, at all.
>The UK being one of the worst countries for 5G deployment, with totally fake coverage (shows the 5G logo but connected to LTE).
I read the linked PDF and did some searching but I didn't see in what instances networks use a 5G Logo for LTE (although I do recall hearing about something like that in the past)... could you give some more detail?
5G is currently NSA (not standalone), it can't be used without 4G/LTE. It needs a 4G connection to anchor itself on, to act as a supplementary band. This is also known as ENDC. This is an intermediary step to proper full blown, standalone 5G which will probably happen in a few years.
It's often the case that when connected to a 4G site which can act as a master or anchor to 5G bands (ie it advertises ENDC capability) your average smartphone will show you the 5G icon, but in reality you are only connected to 4G/LTE and there may not even be a 5G site nearby to aggregate.. This is probably why it's called "fake".
It is indeed very cheeky of the operators or manufacturers to show 5G when 5G is not actually in use. Marketing...
There is a technical reason for that, 5G in UK (and 99% of the world) is NSA, ie not stand alone, it acts as a supplementary band, anchored in LTE.
Your phone/router will only aggregate this 5G band under load (ie downloading, streaming hq etc), most of the time there is little load so 5G is not needed. It is also a power optimization issue, as 5G processing requires more battery.
Well, I've been to Portugal recently, Porto to be precise, they have actual 5G which you can actually connect to, and despite roaming and the amount of tourists, it was night and day: everything loaded instantly, not a single hickup.
Back in the UK, I spent last weekend in London, 5G logo always on but not actually connected. I could not even send a message when I was in busy areas.
So yes, it helps with congestion, you just don't realise how congested the network is until you've tried the real thing.
There's a busy area down the road from me that I consistently get a couple bars of 5G signal but the internet is unusable in a 200 metre radius. Sucks for all the local businesses around.
Are you on a network that runs its own infrastructure or an MVNO? I've experienced the same thing a lot, especially on 4G in busy holiday spots, and have been told that apparently MVNO traffic is heavily deprioritised versus that of the primary carrier.
The amount of "bars" is irrelevant. You need to check if you're actually connected to 5G and that's very well hidden. (##4636## on android. Anything but "connected" for "NR State" means you're actually connected to 5G)
BT Openreach also seems to be getting away with an unjustified price structure too. ADSL established a precedent for upload speeds being far slower than download speeds, and this has been continued with FTTC and is being continued with FTTP.
There are a lot of good uses cases for faster uploads (backup to cloud, home servers, maybe things like video conferencing) and much less gain from faster downloads (except allowing websites to be even more bloated and more HD video to watch on smartphones)
Not sure why this is getting down voted. I'm in the UK right now for work and it seems to me the country is riddled with bureaucracy. An army of bureaucrats making sure the actual doers has to bend over backwards to follow some ridiculous rules.
I am not surprised the 5G roll out is taking time in the UK.
In my experience with my phone Samsung S10e, and my provider being a reseller, I am able to use 4g and 3g (when available). And 3g provides better and superior coverage.
With LTE, few times I am unable to browse or do anything because I have no signal, if I switch to 3g I immediately have 2 or 3 bars and can use it. Unfortunately, I can't force the phone to use 3g as I used to do, because more and more areas are now without any kind of 3g coverage.
So I guess I will have just bad 4g signal, until I decide to upgrade a perfectly fine working phone with 5g support, and only then I will be able to discover if 5g is good as 3g or bad as 4g.
The frequency 3G uses will be refarmed for 4G most likely. With any luck you won't have to upgrade.
In fact the Samsung S10e does support LTE B8 900Mhz which is how you are probably getting your 3G now.
I hope this is coupled with an improvement in 4G and 5G coverage, then. I quite frequently find myself on 3G only in the UK.
What I don't get is why you can't buy a plan that supports roaming on every major network. I'd pay double for a plan where my phone connects to whatever 4G or 5G is available regardless of provider, but the free market doesn't seem to have figured out this idea.
From the CTO of the Data Communications Company (the organisation behind smart meter infrastructure in the UK):
> Our second-generation meter solution is primarily based on the 3G network which has commitments through to 2033 based on our current contract, so this service remains mainly unaffected for the next 11 years.
I read somewhere that electricity meters are switching to a scheme where they do low speed data transmission over the power cables and the data is collected at each substation. Gas uses plastic pipes now so I guess they are stuck with the phone network.
Readit News
2018: BT Aims to Switch Off 3G by 2022: https://www.lightreading.com/2g-3g-4g/bt-aims-to-switch-off-...
Infrastructure is always longer lived than it is intended. Next time you're in a London tube station have a look at the cabling and signalling hardware and take a guess at when it was made. 3G gear is brand new by comparison and just as critical to the parties using it.
I'm sure this has something to do with that, it would be cheaper for them to replace 3G infrastructure with 5G.
In the UK specifically? In Ireland at least, most of that stuff seems to be on GPRS; my impression is that it's always been assumed that 3G's days were numbered, so the infra stuff got left on 2G (the GPRS network seems unkillable).
Why? Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade? Especially one that seems to break a lot of backwards compatibility
Yes. Total global wireless data traffic went from 58 exabytes per month in 2019 to 154 exabytes per month in 2022 and is predicted to surpass 326 exabytes per month by 2025.
4G cannot handle this. 5G probably cannot handle this rate of growth for much longer.
https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-repo...
I'm confused though because this [1] gives different timelines.
https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html
The UK being one of the worst countries for 5G deployment, with totally fake coverage (shows the 5G logo but connected to LTE).
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/264600/...I read the linked PDF and did some searching but I didn't see in what instances networks use a 5G Logo for LTE (although I do recall hearing about something like that in the past)... could you give some more detail?
It's often the case that when connected to a 4G site which can act as a master or anchor to 5G bands (ie it advertises ENDC capability) your average smartphone will show you the 5G icon, but in reality you are only connected to 4G/LTE and there may not even be a 5G site nearby to aggregate.. This is probably why it's called "fake".
It is indeed very cheeky of the operators or manufacturers to show 5G when 5G is not actually in use. Marketing...
Back in the UK, I spent last weekend in London, 5G logo always on but not actually connected. I could not even send a message when I was in busy areas.
So yes, it helps with congestion, you just don't realise how congested the network is until you've tried the real thing.
To be honest, LTE was mostly _fine_, but this seems to be generally noticeably better.
In my region, maps shows full coverage with "excellent" outdoor signal, but I get at most two to three lines on my phone. It's basically a scam.
There are a lot of good uses cases for faster uploads (backup to cloud, home servers, maybe things like video conferencing) and much less gain from faster downloads (except allowing websites to be even more bloated and more HD video to watch on smartphones)
FTTP was rolled out where I live by several providers almost 2 years ago. I don't live anywhere particularly urban.
I think we were at the back of the queue for this with FTTP available in UK cities for a few years now.
(For the avoidance of confusion I mean actual FTTP and not fibre to a cab/twisted pair to premises).
I am not surprised the 5G roll out is taking time in the UK.
With LTE, few times I am unable to browse or do anything because I have no signal, if I switch to 3g I immediately have 2 or 3 bars and can use it. Unfortunately, I can't force the phone to use 3g as I used to do, because more and more areas are now without any kind of 3g coverage.
So I guess I will have just bad 4g signal, until I decide to upgrade a perfectly fine working phone with 5g support, and only then I will be able to discover if 5g is good as 3g or bad as 4g.
Sure, it's a lot slower, but more reliable. And more then enough for a little traffic or weather data.
Well that's awesome in my opinion. Your older model car can no longer spy on you.
What I don't get is why you can't buy a plan that supports roaming on every major network. I'd pay double for a plan where my phone connects to whatever 4G or 5G is available regardless of provider, but the free market doesn't seem to have figured out this idea.
> Our second-generation meter solution is primarily based on the 3G network which has commitments through to 2033 based on our current contract, so this service remains mainly unaffected for the next 11 years.
https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/news-events/2g-sunset-looking-int...
The UK smart meter rollout is/was the most expensive among countries that went this route of smart meters.
Or move up North (or Scotland) as "our", ekhm, "smart meters", are using a radio technology.
I have a feeling that it's already stopped working as I don't think I'm getting traffic updates any more.