What Is 3G Cellular Service and Why Is It Being Shut Down?

On day, 2022, AT&T began turning off its 3G cellular network. T-Mobile is scheduled to show it’s off on July 1, 2022, and Verizon is slated to imitate on day, 2022.

The overwhelming majority of cellphones in commission operate 4G/LTE networks, and also the world has begun the transition to 5G, however as several as ten million phones within the U.S. still suppose 3G service. Additionally, the cellular network functions of some older devices like Kindles, iPads, and Chromebooks area unit tied to 3G networks. Similarly, some older internet-connected systems like home security, automotive navigation, and diversion systems, and solar battery modems area unit 3G-specific. Customers can ought to upgrade or replace these systems.

So why area unit the telecommunications carriers turning off their 3G networks? As AN technologist UN agency studies wireless communications, I will justify. The solution begins with the distinction between 3G and later technologies like 4G/LTE and 5G.

Picture a family trip. Your spousal equivalent is on the phone arrangement activities to try to do at the destination, your teen girl is streaming music and chatting along with her friends on her phone, and her younger is enjoying a web game together with his friends. All those separate conversations and knowledge streams area unit communicated over the cellular network, apparently at the same time. You most likely take this with a pinch of salt, however have you ever questioned however the cellular system will handle all those activities at an equivalent time, from an equivalent car?

Communicating all those messages

The answer may be a technological trick known as multiple access. Imagine employing a sheet of paper to put in writing messages to one hundred completely different friends, one non-public message for every person. The multiple access technology utilized in 3G networks is like writing each message to every of your friends exploitation the complete sheet of paper, therefore all the messages' area unit written on prime of every different. However, you've got a special set of pens with completely different colors that permits you to put in writing every message in an exceedingly distinctive color, and every of your friends incorporates a special try of glasses that reveals solely the color meant for that person.

However, the quantity of colored pens is fastened, therefore if you would like to send messages to a lot of folks than the quantity of colored pens you've got, you may ought to begin mixture colors. currently once a lover applies their special lenses, they'll see a bit little bit of the messages to different friends. They won’t see enough to browse the opposite messages, however the overlap can be enough to blur the message meant for them, creating it more durable to browse.

The multiple access technology employed by 3G networks is named Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA. It had been unreal by Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs with many outstanding electrical engineers. The technique is predicated on the conception of unfold spectrum, a plan which will be copied back to the first twentieth century. Jacobs’ 1991 paper showed that CDMA will increase the cellular capability manyfold over systems at the time.

CDMA lets all cellular users send and receive their signals in the slightest degree times and over all frequencies. therefore if one hundred users want to initiate a decision or use a cell service at round the same time, their one hundred signals can overlap with one another over the complete cellular spectrum for the complete time they impart.

The overlapping signals produce interference. CDMA solves the interference downside by holding every user have a novel signature: a code sequence which will be wont to recover every user’s signal. The code corresponds to the color in our paper analogy. If their area unit to several users on the system at an equivalent time, the codes will overlap. This results in interference, that gets worse because the range of users will increase.

Slices of your time and spectrum

Instead of permitting users to share the complete cellular spectrum in the slightest degree of times, different multiple access techniques divide access by time or frequency. Division over time creates time slots. Every association will last over multiple time slots detached in time, however on every occasion the slot is therefore short – a matter of milliseconds – that the cell user doesn’t understand the interruptions from alternating time slots. The association seems to be continuous. now slicing technique is time-division multiple access (TDMA).

The division may also be drained in frequency. Every association is given its own band inside the cellular spectrum, and also the association is continuous for its period. This frequency slicing technique is frequency division multiple access (FDMA).

In our paper analogy, FDMA and TDMA area unit like dividing the paper into one hundred strips in either dimension and writing every non-public message on one strip. FDMA would be, as an example, horizontal strips, and TDMA would be vertical strips. With individual strips, all messages area unit separated.

4G/LTE and 5G networks use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), a extremely economical combination of FDMA and TDMA. Within the paper analogy, OFDMA is like drawing strips on each dimension, dividing the complete paper into several squares, and distribution every user a distinct set of squares in keeping with their knowledge want.

End of the road for 3G

Now you've got a basic understanding of the distinction between 3G and also the later 4G/LTE and 5G. You may still moderately raise why 3G has to be stop working. It seems that due to those variations within the access technology, the 2 networks area unit designed exploitation utterly completely different instrumentation and algorithms.

3G handsets and base stations operate a broadband system, which means they use the complete cellular spectrum. 4G/LTE and 5G operate narrowband or multi-carrier systems, that use slices of the spectrum. These 2 systems want utterly completely different sets of hardware, from the antenna on the cell tower right down to the elements in your phone.

So if your phone may be a 3G phone, it cannot connect with a 4G/LTE or 5G tower. For a protracted whereas, the cellular service their 3G networks going whereas building a totally separate network with new tower instrumentation and mating new handsets' exploitation of 4G/LTE and 5G. Imagine bearing the price of operative 2 separate networks at an equivalent time for an equivalent purpose. Eventually, one should go. And now, because of the carriers' area unit beginning to deploy 5G systems in earnest, that point has come back for them.