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> The N900 that lays next to me right now still works as a phone. It soon won't be. 3G and 2G network are being depreciated quickly around the world
by j16sdiz 10mo ago
> The N900 that lays next to me right now still works as a phone.
It soon won't be. 3G and 2G network are being depreciated quickly around the world
- seba_dos1 10mo agoShould still be fine for at least a few years here.
- gbil 10mo agoDepends on the country and provider but is sooner than later in Europe and I hate it that 2G is going away since all my old devices are not going to work again… https://onomondo.com/blog/2g-3g-sunset-2/ https://onomondo.com/blog/2g-3g-sunset-2/
- bigiain 10mo agoHere in Australia 3G is totally gone already. 2G went years ago.
- daveoc64 10mo agoThat article is full of made up slop - at least in terms of Europe. Most of the dates stated are just plain wrong. The UK dates are completely wrong - by 5 years in most cases. All of the UK's 2G networks are still running, and the last won't be switched off until at least 2030.
- gbil 10mo agoThe article is from 2022 and is good enough summary. Specifics for sure can vary in between but that is why you are more than able to do an individual search.
- LeoPanthera 10mo agoCan I broadcast my own 3G cell inside my house with some magic radio device?
- yaky 10mo agoI've only heard of doing so for 2G: https://hackaday.com/2025/10/06/2g-gone-bring-it-back-yourself/ https://hackaday.com/2025/10/06/2g-gone-bring-it-back-yourse...
- bigiain 10mo agoNot legally. Where I'm from they sold off the old 3G spectrum and frequencies, mostly (all?) to established telcos to use in 4G or 5G mobile services. They will not be happy if you start interfering with their customers there (especially not after the money they spent at the auction for those licenses). There are some weird bits of the 900MHz band that cross into the fairly free-to-use ISM bands in some countries, and I recall a CCC talk where someone demonstrated a SDR setup doing mobile phone base station stuff by sneaking into what were ISM bands in Germany where he was that handsets would talk to because they were allocated as cellular phone spectrum in other parts of the world. Here in Australia we are limited and can't use the upper end of the 920MHz ISM band with LoRa devices, because Optus bought that spectrum for their phone network. (Here in Aust4ralia we have other cellular spectrum and phone network problems, where a lot of older devices that support some 4 and/or 5G cannot reliably call 000 (our equivalent emergency number to the US 911), because the fall back to 3G when roaming onto other networks... A few people have died recently, and all the telcos are busy blocking a growing list of phones, mostly older Samsung ones if the noise in mainstream media here is accurate. I know my old but still otherwise functional Galaxy S6 Edge is not on the banned list.)
- kilpikaarna 10mo agoNot sure about 3G, but here's an example of 2G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWvA4Ty1Wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWvA4Ty1Wk Edit: same as already posted hackaday, oop!
- daemonologist 10mo agoI apologize for being that guy, but they are being deprecated. To depreciate is to decrease in value.
- jjtheblunt 10mo agobut then, deprecation causes depreciation in this case, for extra fun.
- secult 10mo agoIn Europe we keep 2G as a failsafe, deprecating only 3G.
- gbil 10mo agonope, check the link I posted in another comment: https://onomondo.com/blog/2g-3g-sunset-2/#europe https://onomondo.com/blog/2g-3g-sunset-2/#europe please note that the list is not fully up to date, eg. in Germany Voda and Telekom have said that they will sunset 2G in summer 2028.
- SahAssar 10mo agoNot true, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out Many countries/carriers in europe have already shut down 2G, many will shut it down in 2027. A few will keep it a few years more.
- officialchicken 10mo agoIt's a hot mess too. When you have an American carrier / phone number on an international plan and they shut down all radios in the case of an emergency in the EU, you still get 2G/3G service abroad while everyone's phones around you is dead.
- SahAssar 10mo agoWhat do you mean? They are shutting down the radio transceivers for 2G/3G, how would an American number/carrier get a signal in countries that have shut down their 2G/3G networks? Or are you talking about plans to do direct-to-cell satellite service, cause none of those are 2G/3G as far as I can tell? The whole point is to free up spectrum, how would that work if that spectrum is still in use for the American carriers in countries that shut down the service for domestic use? Why would service be maintained for such a niche usecase?
- systemtest 10mo agoA bit of a shame. I had a Nokia 6090 with 8 watt of transmit power on 900Mhz. Combined with a 33 centimeter antenna that phone had reception in nearly all of the European continent. And with a 70Ah 12v battery you had a battery life of weeks. Even with the phone consuming up to 25 watts during calls. My fancy new 5G smartphone doesn’t work in rural parts of the country. We are going backwards.