splitAug 17, 2023
WHAT THE FUCK IS G
Show threadExperiencersInternational  🇵🇸Aug 18, 2023
@split general packet radio service, GPRS

Basically slower than EDGE but faster than regular 2G. To be honest, I think it definitely confused me when I was younger as being like 1G or something and I was using a 3G phone for a few months and I was on G at one point. I never really fall back onto GPRS or EDGE but I generally try to block 2G by messing with the phone info thing.

---

and if anyone's interested, H and H+ are variants of 3G, High Speed Packet Access (HSPA)
Show threadash Aug 26, 2023
@experiencer @split uhm. Agree with most of that but pretty sure you have your order mixed up. GPRS is, unless I'm very mistaken, the baseline and about as slow as it gets - with EDGE being an attempt to improve it by bundling channels together.
Show threadExperiencersInternational  🇵🇸Aug 27, 2023
@darkphoenix @split I think regular 2G is GSM right?
Show threadash Aug 27, 2023
@experiencer @split 2G is GSM, apparently at least Wikipedia (and some of its citations) have informally dubbed GPRS as 2.5G and EDGE as 2.75G, though neither of them is a term I'd ever heard before. For further reference, GPRS allows about 40kbit/s under ideal conditions, while EDGE caps out at 384 (if you're lucky).
Show thread -> [email protected]Aug 27, 2023
@darkphoenix @experiencer @split To give more info, 2G refers to voice and SMS as the very basic cellular signals that a modern (GSM-compatible) handset can do. GPRS (ie 2.5G) is the data version of 2G GSM and therefore is the “G” that will appear on the status bar. Although I’ve never, ever, ever seen GPRS on a mobile phone in my life, the worst I’ve seen is Edge and that’s like trying to get Internet through the eye of a needle.
Show threadash Aug 27, 2023
@[email protected] @experiencer @split I've seen G... less than a handful of times. EDGE is usually the lowest level it falls down to, probably at least in part because it's a fairly minor upgrade infrastructure wise. It's still almost entirely useless, unfortunately - particularly as the web gets ever more bloated and impossible to use on slow connections...
Show thread -> [email protected]Aug 27, 2023

@darkphoenix @experiencer @split On my Pixel 6 Pro, I personally hit the little toggle that turns off the 2G radio entirely because it’s better to just not have service than try to do anything meaningful with 2G signals.

Even with H/H+ I find pretty much every app and website will take an incredibly long time to load, or they will just time out. Amusingly, my Mastodon and Akkoma instances have been the only websites that will actually load over 3G.

If I could disable 3G signals and just keep the 4G + 5G radios on, that would be pretty good.

Show threadExperiencersInternational  🇵🇸
@[email protected] @darkphoenix @split I'm actually able to play games and watch videos fine on 3G (H+), was watching some YouTube earlier on 3G, as well as playing some Splatoon 3

I think people mainly run into issues due to 3G/2G often kicking in at low strengths. Technically I'm using 3G when there's 4G (and probably 5G) signal, but O2's 4G is laughable, did a speed test next to a cell tower and I got 29/23, and my 4G keeps going completely for no reason
Aug 27, 2023 at 1:42pmWeb