11mo ago

Telstra, Optus to delay 3G network closure amid public safety concerns

www.abc.net.au

37 comments

This shutdown is getting pretty embarrassing. It seems there was very little thought put into 3G reliance beyond consumer electronics in metropolitan areas. Another one not mentioned in the article is the emergency phones in lifts, many of which will cease to operate when 3G is switched off.
- I'm not surprised to be honest, these sorts of decisions often have little thought beyond what the leadership team personally experience
  
  TIL executives don't have object permanence
  
  you'd be mogadored at how many sweeping changes operate that way
- The only way to encourage these devices to switch is to tell everyone the date you're going to switch it off.
  It's inevitable that as the date approaches you'll need to move it back, but you'll be n subscriptions closer.
This thing should be shelved indefinitely. We're taking a massive chunk of the coverage area and scrapping it with 0 intention of applying a better solution here, all so people can get their twitter and email faster.
- Better allocation of spectrum is not just for social media. That's like saying nbn was not needed as what we had before was fast enough for email.
  While, we should not reduce coverage just to increase band with, we should not dismiss the imoirtnace of band with and the limited available spectrum.
  Certainly in less populous areas where spectrum band with is not a problem, perhaps we could keep 3g coverage.
  
  I don't think anyone's really suggesting we keep 3g in the metro areas. Almost the entirety of the greater Melbourne area has 4g, with a fair chunk having 5g, and I think most major cities in the country have almost complete 4g coverage.
  But in the country, there's so many places I've been through, even in the last few months, where I've only had 3g/H+, that I also don't foresee them rolling out 4g to any time soon, let alone the any time this decade. 3g can travel further than 4g, and a lot further than 5g, which means it's all well and good that they've converted all of their 3g towers to also have 4g dishes, but unless they actually build new 4g towers, it's still a net downgrade.
  
  Better allocation of spectrum is not just for social media. That’s like saying nbn was not needed as what we had before was fast enough for email.
  Kind of disagree. NBN didnt cost network to deploy. Well, kind of but kind of not. What does faster netflix mean to someone in a fringe 3g area when we upgrade their 5GN that they cant get anyway?
So, if you ain't gonna be using it anymore, it will be transferred to public domain, right?

37 comments