Coming Cell Phone Obsolescence

dilettante

dilettante

Well-known Member
Location
Michigan
Grr, I hated being forced to get a new phone the last time carriers cut off earlier standards. This sounds like even more of a nightmare, especially if you have a cellular network tablet or multiple phones in your household.

A significant amount of 4G phones rely on 3G networks to make calls. The shutdown of 3G networks around the world is set to disconnect those with 4G devices.
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Planned obsolescence has become so common in technology and appliances. I often catch myself sounding like "an old person" going on about "years ago, things weren't made so shoddily." But it's true! My dryer was given to me by a boss when his wife said it was too old and she wanted a new one (although I'm pretty sure it had just been a couple of years old at the time.) That was in the 80s and it's still going strong! Not so any longer. šŸ˜ 
 

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It's estimated that between 5 and 10 million people, many of them older adults, still have 3G phones and will lose their wireless connections this year, Baig told Checkbook.


I checked my phone. I just got it a few months ago and it is a 4g phone. I am glad THAT it won't be one those expensive adjustments to progress we keep having to pay for every time you turn around.
 
well, if i don't have the money for a 5G phone then i guess i won't have a phone for a while. i think it's bs being forced into spending money to keep up with what the powers that be come up with in technology. not my damn fault 4G isn't good enough for them.
 
My inexpensive modestly featured 5 year old moto g6 was released in May 2018 so has 4G that supposedly will be around till the end of this decade. Major related issue is Internet sites and browsers continue to bloat themselves with higher data bandwidth functionality to the point owning a dated smartphone increasingly cannot load many pages so just churns and churns endlessly, finally timing out uselessly.
 
Michael Z said:
And here I happily sit with my $20 flip phone.
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Check on it though. It's likely to be 3G.

And a point in the video was that many 4G phones use 3G for call placement and such and could stop working. I checked with AT&T and found a list of phones that "Will work after January 2022." I need to find a newer list if there is one.
 
Is this likely to happen in the U.S....I mean losing cell service all together? Video presenter seems focused on Australia, from what I saw. I know they were pushing 5G here. My son's carrier actually told him they would be phasing out 4G phones and sent him a new one, free of charge! I got my 5G phone in April of this year. He got his new one at least a couple of months before I did.

I know a few people who don't even have smart phones and still have flip phones. I assume they will be affected. (? :unsure: )
 
We mainly us our WiFi for connection with the iPads, but my phone does have 5G and is usually connected with that if we are out and about. I thought that the 3G phones quit working a while back, but apparently they didnā€™t yet.
Elon Musk is putting up more of the Starlink satellites, so that will be available in ,ore places soon, too. Maybe then the price for it will come down, because it is pretty expensive at this point.

Once a person gets through the learning curve for a newer phone, you can appreciate the things you can do with it besides just having it as a device to make phone calls. I seldom call people, but my phone tracks all of my health information for me, takes great pictures, and does lots of other stuff that i enjoy having.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Is this likely to happen in the U.S....I mean losing cell service all together? Video presenter seems focused on Australia, from what I saw. I know they were pushing 5G here. My son's carrier actually told him they would be phasing out 4G phones and sent him a new one, free of charge! I got my 5G phone in April of this year. He got his new one at least a couple of months before I did.

I know a few people who don't even have smart phones and still have flip phones. I assume they will be affected. (? :unsure: )
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I wish I could figure it all out. But I changed phones in 2021 because AT&T was switching off old service in 2022. As far as I can tell my current phone does not support 5G, but it is still on AT&T's list of supported phones.

So perhaps Australia is just running behind and all phones currently working on U.S. carriers will be ok for a while.
 
When selecting technology for IoT deployments, enterprises need to know how long 4G LTE will be available, whether 5G will make 4G obsolete, and how to plan their investment. The answer is that there will be a long period of time when 4G and 5G will co-exist. LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution, will be around for at least 10 years, so 5G will not make LTE obsolete any time soon.
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4G to 5G: How Long Will 4G LTE Be Available?
 
This is my electronics buying history.
I was the first to get a brand new 4 track cassette player/recorder.
Then, I was the first to get a new 8 track cassette player/reorder.
Then came a reel to reel cassette player.
Then came a CD player.
Of course I went from mono to stereo to quad to surround.
I'm dying to do my 2023 taxes, because in a year taxes will be obsolete.
 

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