Spark to close its 3G network in late 2025

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark to close its 3G network in late 2025

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#3056511 30-Mar-2023 13:21

tripper1000:

The rush to close 3G in the USA has been a bit of a shambles and certainly has not lead to a better customer calling experience. There are phones still being released (eg the S22's on Vodafone) which stuggle with sub-par audio on VoLTE.

And in all fairness AT&T advised of its shutdown in 2019 - 3 years prior to the Feb 22 turn off date. The issue is that not all carriers worldwide were able to launch VoLTE domestically and/or VoLTE roaming in time, resulting in some challenging experiences for roamers.

andyb

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openmedia

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#3056518 30-Mar-2023 13:39

andyb:

tripper1000:

The rush to close 3G in the USA has been a bit of a shambles and certainly has not lead to a better customer calling experience. There are phones still being released (eg the S22's on Vodafone) which stuggle with sub-par audio on VoLTE.

And in all fairness AT&T advised of its shutdown in 2019 - 3 years prior to the Feb 22 turn off date. The issue is that not all carriers worldwide were able to launch VoLTE domestically and/or VoLTE roaming in time, resulting in some challenging experiences for roamers.

And a big impact is roaming into the US is now an issue for a lot of handsets with the lack of 3G networks. Similar issues will occur here, even picking up a local SIM doesn't guarantee you'll have 4G LTE on your off shore device. I do wonder which carrier will hang onto 3G for the longest, and hence mop up all those overseas visitors.

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gzt

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#3056519 30-Mar-2023 13:39

jonb: Only last year there were big threads here about what a shitshow VoLTE is nationally with people unable to contact emergency services despite 4bars etc. I have no idea if my current Xiaomi Note 11 does VoLTE on Spark/Skinny and would have no way of finding out.

Interesting.

gzt

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#3056523 30-Mar-2023 13:47

Bung: There's a lot more Noel Leeming, Harvey Norman, Warehouse etc than telco stores.

It is my understanding those major retailers and more are careful to avoid selling parallel import phones and they retail only approved devices, mostly with an explicit and specific carrier approval. Assuming they and their partners had a three year horizon leading up to this announcement. Otherwise those retailers will be on the hook for CGA of high end phones if they break I think.

tripper1000

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#3056604 30-Mar-2023 15:17

Maybe we should all give up on VoLTE and use 2Talk for our voice needs?

It would mean ultimate number portability and resolve the roaming problems. Cellular plans would simply become all-data like terrestrial naked internet plans.

richms

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#3056607 30-Mar-2023 15:18

PB tech might get some hurt from this but all other retailers seem to just drop a stand from one of the telcos in place with plastic fake phones on it with pricing beside it.

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ajw

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#3056631 30-Mar-2023 16:37

Just up to 2 degrees to make a announcement now as to when they will be shutting down 3G.

cokemaster

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#3057758 1-Apr-2023 23:40

tripper1000:

Been doing a bit of Googling and aside from possible voluntary reductions in 4G power, 3G (voice) is/was more reliable than 4G. Something to do with 3G designed to be more robust and 4G designed more for speed.

Edit: ...all other factors being equal. I'm sure 700MHz 4G will give better coverage than 2100 MHz 3G).

Two different technologies. The older technologies featured circuit switched voice which made it a requirement for most chipsets/hardware to support it.
LTE and 5G are all IP/packet data based, which software is doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to voice.

Arguably, 4G/5G are more resilient - they can hand back and forth from VoWIFI, you can seamlessly switch between 4G/5G, voice also takes less resources on the network which means that the risk of congestion is lower (and voice sessions are prioritized above data sessions). If you gave me the choice between a good 4G network and a good (uncongested, which is rare these days given the limited spectrum being assigned to some of the sites) 3G network, I'd take the 4G network every time.

Even in the days of Vodafones residential fentocell solution (the sure signal), calls could be handed off the network to the Sure signal but it was a one way trip. Calls started on the sure signal / handed to the sure signal couldn't be handed back to the network (so the call would drop once you got out of range).

I think the biggest problems have already been explained but can be summarized in two points: Operators-handset makers have been slow to bring VoLTE profiles to their phones. Operators have been selling non VoLTE phones for quite a while which is only going to cause future pain.

ajw:

Just up to 2 degrees to make a announcement now as to when they will be shutting down 3G.

Its only a matter of time. 2D has a much smaller spectrum portfolio so they'd stand to benefit the most (relatively speaking) from putting that to use on 4G/5G. The real question for them is potential impacts from 3G only customers or non-VoLTE customers. Customers have a tendency to stick with their operator of choice but all bets are off if you are forced to buy a new phone.

RE: tripper1000: Maybe we should all give up on VoLTE and use 2Talk for our voice needs?
It would mean ultimate number portability and resolve the roaming problems. Cellular plans would simply become all-data like terrestrial naked internet plans.

Thats been the icebergs floating off the bows of the Telco ships for quite some time. Mobile operators are slowly but surely becoming dumb data providers without the ability to capitalize on international calling, premium sms etc. Whatsapp, iMessage, Facebook messenger, WeChat have effectively meant that Telcos have had to start giving voice and sms away for free. I don't think however that switching to 2Talk will be the option - 2Talk has its place but its very much a telco product, its more likely that Apple and Google solutions (when integrated into the phones) will really start to bite into marketshare.

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Behodar

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#3057771 2-Apr-2023 07:09

cokemaster:

its more likely that Apple and Google solutions (when integrated into the phones) will really start to bite into marketshare.

When Apple announced FaceTime circa 2010, I remember Steve Jobs on stage saying how great it is, and that it's mainly based on open protocols and that Apple will make it interoperable. Of course, that never happened. I wonder what the voice/video calling world would be like today if FaceTime (including the voice-only version) had been built into competing phones a decade ago.

RunningMan

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#3057776 2-Apr-2023 08:13

Behodar:[snip]When Apple announced FaceTime circa 2010, I remember Steve Jobs on stage saying how great it is, and that it's mainly based on open protocols and that Apple will make it interoperable. Of course, that never happened.

Well it kinda did in a very clumsy sort of way.

boosacnoodle

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#3060421 9-Apr-2023 10:09

Interesting that they want to switch 3G off by 2025 but haven’t even got anywhere close to rolling out 5G, which was supposed to be 90% complete by end of this year and we’re now in April 2023. It’s clearly not a dependency on getting the 3G spectrum for 5G.

For comparison, 2degrees have covered more or less the entire NW/W/SW/S of Christchurch. One have covered a good spread of the city and surrounding towns. Then there is Spark who have covered - practically speaking - just the airport, the road from the airport into the CBD and then the CBD itself (plus two towers in the east). Not even Rolleston, Lincoln, Rangiora, Ashburton or Lyttelton Harbour is covered. Spark needs to up their game and fast.

quickymart

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#3060423 9-Apr-2023 10:13

5G coverage in general is still far, far, far behind the footprint of 4G though (or even 3G).

ajw

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#3060424 9-Apr-2023 10:14

boosacnoodle:

Interesting that they want to switch 3G off by 2025 but haven’t even got anywhere close to rolling out 5G, which was supposed to be 90% complete by end of this year and we’re now in April 2023. It’s clearly not a dependency on getting the 3G spectrum for 5G.

For comparison, 2degrees have covered more or less the entire NW/W/SW/S of Christchurch. One have covered a good spread of the city and surrounding towns. Then there is Spark who have covered - practically speaking - just the airport, the road from the airport into the CBD and then the CBD itself (plus two towers in the east). Not even Rolleston, Lincoln, Rangiora, Ashburton or Lyttelton Harbour is covered. Spark needs to up their game and fast.

The same could be said of VF a lot of areas of the country not covered by 5G and 3G switchoff december 2024.

Behodar

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#3060425 9-Apr-2023 10:19

boosacnoodle:

Interesting that they want to switch 3G off by 2025 but haven’t even got anywhere close to rolling out 5G, which was supposed to be 90% complete by end of this year and we’re now in April 2023. It’s clearly not a dependency on getting the 3G spectrum for 5G.

We got an outage notice at work in maybe August last year, saying that there would be potential outages over the next week or so as they installed 5G on the local towers. Here we are in April and it still hasn't actually happened.

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#3060428 9-Apr-2023 10:26

I’m temporarily on Spark again on account of roaming in New Zealand… I’ve noticed 4G is ok but no data on 3G (when calling, it appears Telstra doesn’t do VoLTE).

When I was at the airport roaming on 2 degrees, I had data on 3G however… but unsure whether the airport odd a special place where they allocate more 3G capacity than usual.

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