RAV4.5 rubbish sat nav.

[ernieb]

I checked with the SIM provider, O2, that I use in my PowerTxt and they say that OFCOM want the 2G network cleared by 2033 and that they will be looking at that at the end of the 2020’s. They are focused of removing 3G by 2025. I think they said, might be wrong, that the 3G network uses a massive %age of the power overall and is not used.

 

[Cyker]

It's a slightly deceptive statement - The real reason they want to get rid of 2G and 3G is they run on an older-style of back end; It's a bit like the old pulse dialing vs the newer tone dialing on landlines.

At the moment, they're running a back-end network for 2G/3G and another one for 4G/5G - If they can get rid of 2G and 3G it means they can shut down all the back-end associated with it, which will certainly save resources and energy, but requires 4G and 5G rollout to match which will consume resources and energy too. Probably more since many more masts are needed for 5G to have the same coverage as 2G and 3G!

We've already noticed more signal issues with our 5G users than 4G and some colleagues have reporting having to disable 5G at some sites to stop it flopping between the two.

The 2G switch-off will take longer than 3G just because so many things run off it - When it goes dark, a lot of half-forgotten telemetry stations will go down and things like weather stations and other remote monitoring stations, car SOS systems, remote alarms and warning systems, smart meters etc. that haven't been updated will just stop working.

It's a bit of a crisis in the background at the moment, and there was even talk of ways to emulate 2G on the new back-end to try and mitigate the huge expense of upgrading all this unsupported equipment, although I don't know of any country that's even begun testing that.