From: wollman@bimajority.org
In article <327d1461-7d5b-4e5f-9000-cc45dd463deco@googlegroups.com>,
HAncock4 wrote:
>On Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 12:31:51 AM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote:
>
>> The next-generation of wireless technologies-known as 5G-is here....
>
>I heard the old cell phones ("3G") will no longer work effective
>January 1st.
>
>Would anyone know how to identify if an old phone is 3G?
It depends on the phone. Usually you can look up the model number and
find out what sort of radio module it has in it -- anything that
doesn't support "LTE" is toast. That includes all "CDMA" technologies
(LTE is also Code-Division Multiple-Access but isn't "CDMA" brand
CDMA) and all "classic GSM". (The carriers that supported IS-135
"TDMA" sunsetted it in favor of GSM when they rolled out "3G", so
there is no longer any IS-135 service anywhere.)
It's a bit sad for many time geeks like me; IS-95/IS-2000 CDMA has a
nice feature that it transmits a GPS-synchronized timecode (accurate
to within a few microseconds), which could be used to derive a network
timing standard without needing a rooftop antenna (or a subscription);
when CDMA sunsets, those of us who have CDMA timecode receivers will
lose our precision timing source. (I have a work-owned GPS receiver
at home, but because of ISP delays it can't provide nearly as good a
timebase as the CDMA receiver at the office.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)
***** Moderator's Note *****
I used to work in the VZ engineering group that handled SS7 and
Timing. The Engineer who worked on timing had a favorite joke:
whenever anyone asked him what time it was, he'd say "Nobody knows!"
Bill Horne
Moderator
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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