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Those of us working on apps, websites, etc, need to remember that there are lots of people out there that are not connected to the fast Wi-Fi or fibre connectio
by luuurker 2y ago
Those of us working on apps, websites, etc, need to remember that there are lots of people out there that are not connected to the fast Wi-Fi or fibre connections we have.
Here in the UK, some networks started shutting down 3G. Some have 2G as a low energy fall back, but we're supposed to use 4G/5G now. The problem is that 4G is not available everywhere yet, some areas until recently only had good 3G signal. So I've been dropping to 2G/EDGE more often than I'd like and a lot of stuff just stops working. A lot of apps are just not tested on slow, high latency, high package loss scenarios.
- jimmaswell 2y agoShutting down 3G was a mistake. Besides turning so many devices into e-waste, it was a good backup when 4g was congested.
- HPsquared 2y agoThe lower-bandwidth connections get completely saturated by modern phones with modern data allowances. Back in the day I had 500MB a month on 3G, for instance. I can use that in a few minutes these days.
- luuurker 2y ago3G devices should still work over 2G. It's much slower, but it works and should do so until well into 2030 in the UK. The problem with 3G as I understand it is that it uses more power and is less efficient than 4G/5G. They're starting to re-deploy the 3G bands as 4G/5G, so the other Gs will eventually benefit from this shutdown.
- qingcharles 2y agoHere in the USA a great number of networks will drop back to 2G when their data plan runs out. And most poor people are on really low data limits, so they spend most of the month on 2G. Try using Google Maps to get around on 2G :(
- luuurker 2y agoI can imagine how bad it is. By the way, Google Maps supports offline maps. If the user can download the map (a few MB for a city), then at least the basic stuff will be fast.