secult parent
In Europe we keep 2G as a failsafe, deprecating only 3G.
Not true, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out
Many countries/carriers in europe have already shut down 2G, many will shut it down in 2027. A few will keep it a few years more.
A bit of a shame. I had a Nokia 6090 with 8 watt of transmit power on 900Mhz. Combined with a 33 centimeter antenna that phone had reception in nearly all of the European continent. And with a 70Ah 12v battery you had a battery life of weeks. Even with the phone consuming up to 25 watts during calls.
My fancy new 5G smartphone doesn’t work in rural parts of the country. We are going backwards.
It's a hot mess too. When you have an American carrier / phone number on an international plan and they shut down all radios in the case of an emergency in the EU, you still get 2G/3G service abroad while everyone's phones around you is dead.
What do you mean? They are shutting down the radio transceivers for 2G/3G, how would an American number/carrier get a signal in countries that have shut down their 2G/3G networks? Or are you talking about plans to do direct-to-cell satellite service, cause none of those are 2G/3G as far as I can tell?
The whole point is to free up spectrum, how would that work if that spectrum is still in use for the American carriers in countries that shut down the service for domestic use? Why would service be maintained for such a niche usecase?
nope, check the link I posted in another comment: https://onomondo.com/blog/2g-3g-sunset-2/#europe
please note that the list is not fully up to date, eg. in Germany Voda and Telekom have said that they will sunset 2G in summer 2028.