Vodafone turning off 2G network?

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sbiddle

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#1600753 29-Jul-2016 12:44

ghettomaster:

Is anyone able to shed light on why the power meters were rolled out with 2g in the first place?

Quite simply in the early stages of the project there was neither nationwide 3G coverage nor suitable M2M kit that supported the 900MHz 3G band. Because of the low bandwidth requirements GSM was also perfectly sufficient (and still is today) for the needs of a smart meter.

Obviously the first two issues above changed pretty quickly, but you can't keep holding back from a project forever just because a new technology or solution may hit the market.

tangerz

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#1600810 29-Jul-2016 14:15

pchs:

sbiddle:

3G will perform far better at a lower signal strength anyway.

Is this just because its a newer technology? why would carriers drop back to 2G often if this is the case? - are they just dropping back to 2G for capacity. I often see my phone drop back to 2G in marginal areas.

This is something you are less likely to see now than a few years ago. Initially, Vodafone 2G was deployed on 900MHz and 1800MHz, then 3G on 2100MHz when it came along. The 3G 2100MHz signal had poorer coverage than the 2G 900MHz signal (the lower frequencies have longer reach) hence why you would see a phone 'drop back' to 2G.

In newer deployments however, (and since 4G came along), 2G is now on 900MHz only, (1800MHz taken over by 4G), 3G is on 2100MHz and 900MHz (alongside 2G) and 4G on 1800MHz and (more recently) 700MHz, (as well as some areas on 2600MHz).

As you can see, with the newer deployments, 2G and 3G now both use the 900MHz band which gives them essentially the same coverage, however with 3G working at lower signal level , the 3G coverage could actually be better than 2G, (given the same tower and transmit power).