That's not the case everywhere. Depending on your network's configuration, it's entirely possible to have areas of high traffic where 3G service is so poor even 4G is miles ahead. This is because networks may decide to provides lots of spectrum to 4G whereas the spectrum available to 3G has be reduced to the bare minimum they need to operate. This is the case for all three networks operating here in New Zealand. One carrier has gone from providing 30 MHz of 3G spectrum down to only 15 MHz (basically halving the capacity), meanwhile the same network provides up to 80 MHz of 4G spectrum with plans to reduce 3G usage further so it can be reallocated to 4G or even 5G. Also 4G is so much better at handling poor signal conditions—I know of several places where the rollout of 4G saw marginal singal locations improve from sporadic data (coming in bursts randomly every now and then) to actually being able to slowly browse the web anytime with data coming in at a steady stream. The difference was like night and day. I'd be glad to see 3G go but am disappointed about all the issues with VoLTE as its making the migration to 4G more difficult.
It’s insane to keep a massive portion of spectrum on this old technology to support a very small amount of people with outdated hardware.
Not just that – it complicates cell planning a lot.
As far as I know, UMTS and LTE behave very differently under load, and at least in the early versions of UMTS there was the phenomenon of "cell breathing", where the serviceable cell radius varies with network load (due to the CDMA modulation/multiple access scheme used).
Having to provide denser cells in sparsely populated areas just to avoid dropped calls during the odd traffic spike sounds like a real pain.
In my old house, on UMTS, I would have perfect signal except for 6am-4pm when the local school was there. It was fine in the summer. The local school soaked up the entire “cell” and my house was a dead spot.
Re:“We're Shutting Down Our 3G Network”
by jimmaswell on Monday July 19, 2021 @08:04PM
(#27888687)
It's more about these devices that aren't so easy to replace like car modems. If 3G won't be it then we need to settle on something else that can be promised to be there in the foreseeable future for the longevity of IoT/cars/whatever else.
A lesser loss is that 3G often works in a big crowd where LTE is overloaded. Maybe that'll at least change to 5G vs LTE over time.