Why are the providers being allowed to shut down 3G like this and why is there not more push-back?
The sheer amount of e-waste this event will generate is inconceivable, what argument could be made to justify it?
The 2G shut-down made sense, as the technology was /very/ old and barely any phones used it at all, but 3G is still all over the place. Why not wait until 5G adoption is higher?
We are already facing a huge jump in the cost of living in recent years, and now people who had bought a cheaper phone (which are the ones most effected by 3G removal) are forced to spend money they likely don't have.
Surely it is a violation of consumer rights to make millions of Australian's products, some which were only bought within the last few years (like mine) useless.
3G Shutdown Justification
Last edited 16/06/2024 - 23:49
Comments
Was a direct reply to RolandWaites' post above. There was so many replies it went down the list, hence the (reasonable) confusion
What if using older products harms society as a whole? e.g. older operating systems may have intrinsic security flaws that can only be remediated in the new OS.
100% correct. I demand support for my broken dos 6.22 discs. My tandy coco3 also no longer outputs video.
You're being sarcastic but you'd be surprised just how much of our critical infrastructure relies on Windows 3
Government and industry are still using a lot of systems running 3.1 or 3.5
3G is over 20 years old in Australia…. I would suffice to say, it IS old tech.
Yeah but I bought my 3G phone 2 years ago. Why are they doing this to me?
The plan to shut down 3G was announced in 2019. https://www.digitalmatter.com/telstra-3g-shutdown-in-austral…
If someone sold you a 3G only phone in 2022 they were ripping you off.
The 3G shutdown has been widely advertised and has been known about for some time.
@JimmyF: 100% is lol. Below is a guide from Telstra.
Apple iPhones released before 2015
Samsung Galaxy phones released before 2017
Google Pixel phones released before 2018
Other Android devices released before 2020
Eleven months ago, I purchased a defibrillator medical device to help my possibilities of survival if having a heart attack. The device communicates to "base" both to monitor its battery condition (needing periodic replacement), and to give directions to the user, etc. if it is put into action. I now find out that the device uses 3G, even though it is near-new. The Australian manufacturer is now only offering a small token discount on the price of our having to purchase a NEW defibrillator that incorporates 4G. They defend this situation in part by saying that they never thought that shutting down 3G on the present time line would happen because doing so cannot be justified.
@ssmith3104: Personally, I'd be talking to the Theraputic Goods Administration. https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/resource/forms/report-perce…
You also have a clear case that the device is not fit for purpose under the Trade Practices Act. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-… (Scroll down for their complaint letter tool.)
It's also not of acceptable quality since the functionality is breaking within a year or so of your original purchase. 11 months ago your manufacturer was selling a product that they knew, or should have known, would cease functioning the way it was designed to do within a period far shorter than the normal expected lifespan of an item of this type.
The kind of line you are being spun is a common practice, as the forums around here will attest to, by manufactures and suppliers trying to bluff you into not pursuing your rights.
Don't blame the 3G shut down for your problem, blame the shitty manufacturer for selling you a device that is incapable of offering the features that the manufacturer claimed.
@ssmith3104: Sounds like you have a Consumer Guarantee related return on your hands. Would you have bought the device had you known it would lose that core functionally in 12-ish months?
@ssmith3104: Id be quite annoyed with the manufacturer and demand a refund/ replacement.
No manufacturer for the last ~10 years should have provided a device with 3G only capabilities.It’s irresponsible, lazy and they would have saved around 5 cents per unit.
Note that 4G might get canned in the 2030’s (factor in buying anything)
Note for anything tech related, do your research on the latest standards and features.
Everything you buy should last at least 3 years, aim to replace every 3-5 years. You can sometimes stretch to 7 if the budget doesn’t allow and dependent on device/quality - (not including batteries or storage) and always have backups (NAS or hard drive and or cloud backups)@ssmith3104: This sounds like a case for a device which was not fit for purpose and should be a straight case for refund. Straight to you local consumer tribunal.
I bought a DAB+ radio from HN.
All the staff lied at me that they never had any complaint for not receiving anything digital.
The new free Nokia is so bad the earpiece volume is so low it is JUNK!
Off to Coles for a $37 cheap smartphone. May use micro usb but hey the gps does work!
Old yes, but 5G is essentially non-existent everywhere but in cities, meaning if 4G fails millions of people will have no means of backup.
The shutdown will accelerate the nextgen rollout. Most will cheer. But IMO it's not a good thing at all.
One can hope, but given our infrastructure providers track-record it's hard to be optimistic.
@stealthpaw: Look, this is affecting me the most.
But I accept it and I agree with it, and it is a good thing. The Telcos will be forced to upgrade their towers nationally. That means 4G signals will be made to penetrate further, and 5G signals will become more widespread.Overall, your carrier will be a faster speed in maximum and on-average when you compare to Home Internet with NBN. And it will be cheaper. You could potentially buy an overpriced service, and just eliminate your Home NBN all-together. Obviously it depends on your coverage in your home, and the necessary for your Upload Speeds (eg YouTubers) and for latency (eg Competitive Gaming). But yeah overall it will be a good thing if Australia can somewhat catch up to other countries in speed, availability, and price when it comes to internet access.
When has 4G failed but 3G hasn’t?
and 3G did not kick in because the telco's didn't uphold their end of the deal.
Was the network shutdown? No it wasn't…..🤔
So you want to keep a network around that didn't work when you needed? LOL
@stealthpaw: No, you have no evidence. The reason to have a backup between what is essentially the same tech in terms of SRE is for intentional shutdown of a band for maintenance, not because 4g could somehow drop out but leave 3g intact. While both exist, there's a far lower barrier to dropping 4g for a day to swap things out, or to rearrange where you're transmitting from. These are precisely the same arguments we had for the 2g shutdown, and oh, wouldn't you know it was just people who didn't know what they were on about crying about the sky falling.
When people notice outages such that one band is working but another isn't, what has pretty much always occurred is that the tower has gone down, and they are now getting reception from the (longer distance but lower throughput) other band from some other tower, which is happily pumping out both. That's the tower, not the tech. If you absolutely need connectivity in the event of a tower going down, the solution is satellite, not to tie up an entire giant chunk of the radio bandwidth permanently in case of some emergency.
3g is outdated, and is wasteful. Not a little bit of plastic wasteful, but a truly LIMITED resource, which is the available radio spectrum. That is more valuable than gold, and the only usual way to get more of it is to take from something else, cause that shit is FULL. 3g is a blocker to 4g wherever it exists since they share a general wavelength, shutting it down is the only way to ensure reliability and coverage for the higher bandwidths people actually want, to be able to work remotely, telehealth, streaming TV, whatever.
And yes, 4g will end up on the chopping block too. Even 5g won't be top dog for much longer, though it will probably be able to stick around a lot longer since 6g is probably going to involve going above 300mhz and accepting that walls will block it, so we're probably all gonna need inside-outside repeaters unless the physicists pull out something magic.
@Parentheses: …crickets…
You must work in an better IT cause you just schooled op.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
Happened to me a couple of years back, had trouble making calls to 'some' but not all contacts. Telco said to turn off volte and they did something similar at their end until the problem was fixed.
5G is essentially non-existent everywhere but in cities
Why is that? Because the 3G network is using the freqs that 5G needs. So they need to turn off 3G to enable 5G! Its crazy!
they should give us the option! /s
Ahhh no… They run on entirely different frequencies.
Ahhh no… They run on entirely different frequencies.
sigh… Read here
https://www.telstra.com.au/support/mobiles-devices/3g-closur…
Why are you closing the 3G network?
Closing our 3G network allows us to repurpose spectrum to support our 5G rollout and open the door to more digital opportunities.
@JimmyF: Keeping 3G is a dumb idea, but Telstra aren't being entirely honest there either. What they almost certainly mean by that is they're going to sell/trade their 3G licence to someone with a higher frequency licence that they can use for 5G, because one thing that is certain is they can't use 3G bandwidths for 5G. Which isn't an outright lie, but it is probably a lie by omission. Though they will definitely need to hang on to that licence for a long, long time for their 4G network anyways, which DOES compete, so this part is probably only going to be a benefit on the scale of decades.
What they almost certainly mean by that is they're going to sell/trade their 3G licence to someone with a higher frequency licence that they can use for 5G, because one thing that is certain is they can't use 3G bandwidths for 5G
You might want to rethink that statement,
https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Will-my-ph…
Telstra is reusing its 850MHz (B5) licence for 850MHz (n5), so yes, it will be directly reusing its 3G spectrum for 5g as claimed, as well as its 3500MHz (n78) and 26GHz (n258) bands.
5G is about to become a mess unless phones keep up with all the bands needed to work across all telcos
850MHz (n5)
3500MHz (n78)
26GHz (n258)
700MHz (n28)
850MHZ (n5)
1800Hz (n3)
3500MHz (n78)
26GHz (n258)
2100MHz (n1)
2300MHz (n40)@JimmyF: Oh boy, I didn't think they were that dumb. 'low band' 5G isn't 5G at all, it runs at 4G speeds at best, just with a 5G label, and with less robustness against dropped packets. That's the whole reason 5G uses higher bands.
Some googling suggests they have it for commercial use only, likely cause they know next to nobody's phone is going to run that.
@Parentheses: Your ignorance of 5G, network planning and broader spectrum management is showing….and by the way my personal iphone 12 pro is working fine on the sub-6 GHz freqencies supposedly reserved for 'commercial' use only.
Telstra is reusing its 850MHz (B5) licence for 850MHz (n5), so yes, it will be directly reusing its 3G spectrum for 5g as claimed, as well as its 3500MHz (n78) and 26GHz (n258) bands.
In Sydney and Melbourne, Telstra are refarming one of their b7 20mhz carriers to 5G NR to make use of the 10mhz unused.
I understood the whole point of the 3G shutdown is to free spectrum and antenna space for much wider spread of 5G. At least that's what I hope, being somewhere where I can't get 5G.
Of course that could be just telco BS.
How would 4G fail? That’s not how devices work, all of a sudden one day every carrier’s equipment from different managers goes on a 4G strike.
Why are the providers being allowed to shut down 3G like this and why is there not more push-back?
It is their network, they can do what they like with it.
The sheer amount of e-waste this event will generate is inconceivable and no possible argument could be made to justify it.
Most things have been 3G/4G for a long time. What e-waste are you thinking is happening?
The 2G shut-down made sense, as the technology was /very/ old and barely any phones used it at all, but 3G is still all over the place. Why not wait until 5G adoption is higher?
2G was shutdown to make way for 4G, just as 3G is being shutdown to make way for 5G. I'm sure at some point, 4G will be shutdown to make way for 6G.
3G has been around for decades, its far from new.
We are already facing a huge jump in the cost of living in recent years
and?
It is their network, they can do what they like with it.
They paid the government good money for the monopoly on that spectrum!
3G has been around for decades, its far from new.
Yet 4G voice has only been around, reliably, for about 4-5 years. That's a pretty short window to expect the country to have switched over (and to demand/force them to).
They paid the government good money for the monopoly on that spectrum!
I think you mean they bidded and won, optus and voda could have got that spectrum also if they bidded more.
There was no special treatment.
Yet 4G voice has only been around, reliably, for about 4-5 years. That's a pretty short window to expect the country to have switched over (and to demand/force them to).
200k out of 26 million Telstra customers will be impacted, so that short window isn't as short as you think as 25.8 million users have updated/no impacted.
They're doing it to free up the spectrum used by 3G so that some of it can be allocated to 4G/5G to improve coverage. They are also doing it so that they don't have to support two completely different sets of transmission equipment, which should help to lower costs for everyone.
Honestly they've given plenty of warning, years in fact. Anyone who bought a 3G-only device to use in Australia in the last 5 years can only blame themselves.
Realistically, unless you are rocking an iPhone 5 or older, a Samung S6 or older or an early generation Kindle e-reader you're not going to be affected.
free up the spectrum
This.
There's limited frequencies available within the usable spectrum space, and repurposing spectrum for newer replacement technology is exactly why the 3g use of that spectrum space is being (so very very slowly) decommissionedwhich should help to lower costs for everyone.
Do you really think the costs will go down for the mobile services?
should help to lower costs for everyone.
That's 'business speak' for keeping prices the same, and still maintain profit margins to appease shareholders.
Why don't they just add more spectrum
What, just make up frequencies?
Where in the frequency spectrum do you suggest?https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-10/Australi…
i was gonna make a joke about using visible light part of the spectrum but now I'm curious why radio and visible light can pass through the atmosphere but the wavelengths in between cannot and am going down the rabbit hole learning about atmospheric windows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum#/medi…
@Antikythera: That's why VLF and ELF signals can propagate very long distances between the earths surface and the ionosphere which acts as a waveguide. Useful for navigation and naval communication.
There isn't as much pushback as you might have expected because most people are unaffected. There are estimates about a million customers will be affected by this. Australia has a population of 25mil+. Even if you exclude children, that's still the vast majority of adults unaffected.
Most people moved off 3G phones a long time ago. The first iPhone to support 4G calls was the iPhone 6, released 10 years ago. Anyone who has an iPhone 6 or later is unaffected. 3G is about 18 years old now and Telstra gave 5 years of notice in 2019 that this was going to happen. Barely any data passes through 3G - the radio spectrum is better used on 4G/5G to increase the power of those networks. Shutting down 3G also means less fixed costs maintaining an almost redundant second network of towers for barely any benefit.
There are even deals where you can get a brand new working 4G compatible phone for free.
You are not taking into account quite a variety of other circumstances. In my case, only eleven months ago, I purchased a defibrillator medical device to help my survival prospects in the event of having a heart attack. The device presently communicates to "base" regularly to monitor its battery condition (needing periodic replacement), and if used, to give directions to the user, etc. I only now find out that the device uses 3G, even though it is near-new. The Australian manufacturer is now only offering a small token discount on the price of our having to purchase a NEW defibrillator that incorporates 4G. They defend this situation in part by saying that they never thought that shutting down 3G on the present time line would actually happen because doing so cannot be justified because of the large quantum of various devices in the community that rely upon 3G.
While I sympathise with your situation, isn’t this on the device manufacturer for selling you a device that only works on 3G when they were told 3G was going to be shut down this year?
I don’t see how they can blame the telco given they would’ve also received 5 years of notice like everyone else. Assuming that the present time line was going to change was a risk on their part and they were wrong. The telcos are doing exactly what they said they would do.
With 5 years of notice, the manufacturer of your device had time to discontinue this old stock and transition to only selling new devices and communicating that to their customers. But this warning was ignored.
If 5 years isn’t enough what is enough? If it was an 8 year notice period, who’s to say the same reasoning from the manufacturer about there being a large number of devices on 3G won’t also be applied?
At some point a line has to be drawn. If we waited until 0 devices were using 3G we would be waiting a long time.
I hope you are able to go back to the manufacturer and get a suitable resolution.
So the manufacturer knew the 3G network would be shut off and decided to ignore it…
Honestly, that sucks for you as that's entirely on the manufacturer for selling outdated equipment. If it's only 11 months old, that's not fit for purpose - I'd be complaining and demanding a refund or replacement.
You bought outdated tech that has unnecessary “features” that could have been managed by an LCD screen or wifi.
Blame them - this has been in the works for years.
but a good portion of phones still rely on 3G for 000 calls and fallback
this is just plain wrong
what about our farmers and low-income families?
a 4g phone is $50 :/ and our good friend gerry was giving them away with a 3g phone trade-in
True enough, this is what we get for selling vital infrastructure to the private sector.
LOL Optus/Vodafone was never public nor sold to the private sector and they are closing down 3G. Why are you focusing on just Tesla?
The vast majority of phones do support 4G, but a good portion of phones still rely on 3G for 000 calls and fallback. These huge masses of people will need to either e-waste (hopefully) or land-fill their perfectly fine, modern phones unless they want to be able to call 000.
Then turn on VoLTE.
Correct, and it was a good move, however 4G already had decent adoption and most phones did not have the 2G 000 problem mentioned above. 3G should defintely be shut down, but it should be at least 3-4 more years from now IMO.
You seem to be over estimating how many devices will stop working with your extreme 000 examples.
You also assume the networks are doing nothing, they are contacting all devices that will no longer work.
This is fine and all for the 80k+ p/y folk (many of which live in a city and are on 5G already) but what about our farmers and low-income families?
How is there a significant disproportionate impact on economically disadvantaged / low-income communities!? They are the ones with the latest phones, so fully ready to go for 4G/5G networks!
Correct, and it was a good move, however 4G already had decent adoption and most phones did not have the 2G 000 problem mentioned above. 3G should defintely be shut down, but it should be at least 3-4 more years from now IMO.
Wait, what? You're going to have a big whinge about 3G shutting down and say the 2G shutdown was fine when it had exactly the same issues?. The 000 problem even existed, but with added problems like needing to replace all the 2G sims even if it was a 3G phone.
Telstra even learned from that shutdown. They gave people 5 years instead of 18 months notice this time around. That people ignored it for 5 years means they would likely ignore it for another 3-4 more. There are a couple of hundred thousand people left who need to change, just like last time.
I get it, you have a 3G phone and you don't want to update. But you're in the clear minority here, and that spectrum could be used to enhance the 5G rollout nationwide, which would benefit more people.
LOL Optus/Vodafone was never public nor sold to the private sector and they are closing down 3G. Why are you focusing on just Tesla?
I said infrastructure. The government does not own Telstra, Optus or Vodafone.
Then turn on VoLTE.
I'm certainly hoping this will help many people, but the messaging from Telco's and the media is to just buy another phone.
How is there a significant disproportionate impact on economically disadvantaged / low-income communities!? They are the ones with the latest phones, so fully ready to go for 4G/5G networks!
Nice stereotyping and/or ignorance. I can see this discussion will go nowhere and empathy is not a trait you posses.
I said infrastructure. The government does not own Telstra, Optus or Vodafone.
So what vital infrastructure was sold to the private sector then if it wasn't Telstra?
Nice stereotyping and/or ignorance. I can see this discussion will go nowhere and empathy is not a trait you posses.
Not at all, most people have a phone that is compatible, the numbers are small, and like you I just gave you the extreme end of your example like you are giving about people not being able to call 000.
The fact is, most people, rich or poor have a phone what will work with 4G networks that have been around for 10 years now.
So what traits do you thing you are showing with this post? As being about to quote and reply correctly is certainly not one of them.
People are developing natural immunity to 3G. So to keep control of the population they have to encourage 5G by shutting down 3G.
M'lady. Tips tinfoil hat.
I have no doubt the conspiracy community will see this as trying to kill everyone with 5G, business as usual there.
Vodafone completed it's 3G shutdown in Jan'2024, so about 5 months ago. If it was that much of a concern, we'd have seen some noises by now.
Didn't know that @djoz, thanks for sharing.
So you had a rant about Telstra shutting down their 3G network without bothering to see what the others are doing. LOL
Optus us shutting down in Sept BTW https://www.optus.com.au/support/mobiles-tablets-wearables/i…
Considering you've made over 4,200 ozbargin comments in the last 5 years I can see you have a lot of spare time on your hands.
@spackbace laughs in spare time
@stealthpaw: Honestly, I get where you're coming from. Not everyone has time to keep in touch with the news, or read all the notices on people's mobile phone bills and the text messages regularly being sent out by the phone companies, or see the advertising, but that's kind of the point. If the world waited for all disengaged people to get up to date nothing would ever happen.
The problem you have here is main character syndrome. You've discovered something that most of the rest of the universe has been aware of for years and now you want to revisit those debates because you personally missed out on debating it when everyone else was.
That's the consequence of being disengaged though, you have to accept that unless you make an effort to keep up to date with the news then you're going to miss things. You don't get to fall asleep at the wheel, wake up 10 seconds before the car is about to crash into a wall, then start ranting about why you didn't have a chance to slam on the brakes sooner.
@AngoraFish: The problem is I have been keeping in touch with the news. As mentioned I was aware of the shutdown, but had no way to know it would effect me. Only this week did I receive an email from my provider saying I may be effected. Again, this is not a "rant". I brought up multiple issues, but evidently very few are interested in discussing them, and instead are dog-piling with "it's old, get over it", etc.
As mentioned I was aware of the shutdown, but had no way to know it would effect me
So someone who works in IT and knew about the shutdown, wasn't aware if their devices support 4G/VoLTE or not? Interesting….
@stealthpaw: iPhone was released in 2012 and is no longer supported by Apple. Galaxy S5 is 10 years old, as are others on you list.
@SBOB: Those were some quick (and admittedly old) examples, but what does device age have to do with functionality and usability?
The analogy is not great, but if you bought a car in 2000, with regular maintenance can you still drive it today?
When I buy a phone I don't look at it's age, I look at it's features. These phones were advertised as supporting and do in fact support 4G, they will just stop working when 3G is turned off. It's not the providers fault really, it's the phone makers.The analogy is not great, but if you bought a car in 2000, with regular maintenance can you still drive it today?
Don't look at the car aging laws in Japan then….. You might not be able to handle it.
@stealthpaw: For good cyber security reasons, you really shouldn't be using a smart phone that's long out of manufacturer support these days.
Too many known vulnerabilities that can be exploited, and for people who are less financially able to recover from cyber crime, this holds doubly true.
E.g. Banking on a 10 year old smart phone is just asking to be hacked.
Considering you've made over 4,200 ozbargin comments in the last 5 years I can see you have a lot of spare time on your hands.
Thanks for stalking me…. Have fun?
For example, the iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S, Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Google Pixel 2 XL, Huawei Y6 Prime, Optus X, Smart 4G, OPPO A57, OPPO F1s, many Xiaomi models (which many ozbarginers have, myself included) and tons of others smart phones will stop working by the end of the year. These are not 3G phones. These are 4G phones.
Nice copy and paste, but these are all old as crap phones…. most are 10 years old and hardly used today.
The issue with these devices is they don't support VoLTE or as in your case like most older Xiaomi devices, don't support band 28. For the ones that don't support VoLTE, why are you not demanding the OEM releases a firmware update to support it?
Don't look at the car aging laws in Japan then….. You might not be able to handle it.
I've heard. Ridiculous to be sure, but they do have significantly better PT which I'd take over having to own and maintain a car.
Thanks for stalking me…. Have fun?
If you classify 3 clicks stalking, sure.
For the ones that don't support VoLTE, why are you not demanding the OEM releases a firmware update to support it?
A decent point, and I'll try this, but I am not optimistic.
I've heard. Ridiculous to be sure, but they do have significantly better PT which I'd take over having to own and maintain a car.
and yet people still buy cars all the time in the country.
A decent point, and I'll try this, but I am not optimistic.
Considering most of those phones haven't seen an update in 7+ years, people really shouldn't be using them anyhow. They have any OS level security issues.
So don't look at this as a ewaste issue, look at as a security tidy up.
@JimmyF: My Huawei Y5-whateverthehell still has a good battery and did all I needed of it (multi-alarms, calendar, okay camera, occasional games) and I've never activated mobile data.
In fact, mine is a voice/sms only sim. Even if I wanted to, I can't access the internet on my phone.
Considering most of those phones haven't seen an update in 7+ years, people really shouldn't be using them anyhow. They have any OS level security issues.
So how is this an issue for me?
So how is this an issue for me?
Dunno, are you getting SMS/email/letter alerts to tell you your phone will no longer work once 3G is shutdown? If so, then yes it is an issue for you.
Your huawei y5 was released in 2019 looks like it doesn't support VoLTE, so yes will be a problem.
Time to update. Lots of sub $100 phones that will be a great replacement for the Y5.
@JimmyF: Yes, I was getting those annoying SMS, thinking they either got it wrong or were trying to market at me.
Also, this Y6 Elite, not Y5 as I wrote (it's a Y5/Honor something for OS markets — buying accessories on AliE).TIL: there's a difference between LTE and VoLTE
I don't know anyone who was using Vodafone, so I didn't hear about that.
Riiiight…. you don't know anyone using Vodaphone?
Yeah, only about one in six people are on that network, so I can see how your claim is 100% plausible.
Go on, pull the other one.
Perhaps I am missing something, but what does that have to do with the OP?
I agree that minimum support periods are a good thing in general, but what do the hardware manufacturers in this case have to do with the OP, which is the carrier no longer providing a service? Samsung/Apple/whoever do not provide the underlying carrier network.