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Comment by rubylark | Hacker News Reader

I worked very very briefly in the wireless service industry on UAPs and large scale cell antenna receivers. To me, this doesn't seem as much a conspiracy to obsolete old phones as a practical stance to not need to have two copies of antennas on every tower. The old antennas used in 3G don't go up to the frequencies needed by true 5G, so they need new ones. If they're developing new ones, they don't want to have to keep supporting old standards as well, so they don't code for it (and possibly don't even support it in the hardware). So now there are no more 3G receivers on any towers and therefore your 3G phone stops working. As a side effect, anyone still using a 3G device needs to buy a new one, but I don't think that is the main driver for the move.

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> As a side effect, anyone still using a 3G device needs to buy a new one, but I don't think that is the main driver for the move.

Despite the positives, this feels kind of sad.

If you look at software, many of the older browsers out there can't even open simple modern webpages. After years, i grow weary of the churn, i've gone from Windows 98 to Windows 10 now, through numerous versions of Debian/Ubuntu and CentOS/Fedora, From Android 2.1 all the way to 10 currently. I have had software and even hardware be ripped out of my hands every few years, because someone decided to change something and deprecate the older stuff.

But what is the alternative? Use old and sadly insecure hardware/software? Or keep up with everything and partake in more consumerism than i should?

Just some musings on the topic, because watching Bryan Lunduke talk about old computers from another time when not everything old was considered "vulnerable" and "a risk" (due to not having much network capability at all) was interesting and enjoyable. I wonder what i'll be working with in 20 years and whether the older Debian and Windows XP versions will still hold a place in my heart.

> someone decided to change something and deprecate the older stuff

I definitely understand the pain. In some cases, it's stupid moves. In other cases, it's about reclaiming the resources for something better. With wireless, should a small number of people who want to use old devices mean that we can't use those wireless frequencies for newer high-speed data? Maybe carriers should start pricing based no how much bandwidth you're using in terms of frequencies. Well, you're using a device that is 1/10th as efficient as a modern device so we're charging you many times more than what we charge customers with modern devices.

Sometimes there's inefficient stuff that impacts whether others can enjoy what they want.

> But what is the alternative?

The alternative is that we decide that new stuff (possibly progress) isn't something we want. I say possibly progress because some stuff is questionably progress. Do we need YouTube, TikTok, online games, etc? No, but they can surely be nice. We could certainly go back to the days of 2GB wireless plans and live like that. Heck, we lived without wireless data for a long time.

With some of the software churn, it just becomes hard to support so many different configurations and people concentrate on the ones that are commonly used.

> keep up with everything and partake in more consumerism than I should

Some of it is consumerism. Some of it is progress. I think you're slightly unfairly conflating it all as consumerism. The ability to offer unlimited data plans and faster data speeds is progress over slow, limited data plans. The problem you're facing is that everyone else changes and you don't see the point of it. Imagine everyone started speaking NewEnglish. You might see nothing wrong with English and it's not like English no longer works, but given that everyone else has changed, it no longer works for what you want - communicating with others around you.

Realistically, this is part of living in a civilization. You have to go along with what the civilization is doing and what will interface with them. This isn't even a modern phenomena in some ways. You talk about having an old computer that you want to be able to interface with others safely (view modern web pages, keep running software, etc). I'm now thinking of the Reformation where literally if you didn't adopt the new religion you might be killed. That's an extreme example, but there's a lot that people must do to be a part of our civilization.

Humans are social beings and our technology is no less social. It's why people have fights over things like programming languages. If PHP is a "dead language" it means that the next generation of engineers won't learn it and it will become less useful over time because fewer people will be improving it, writing libraries for it, and fewer systems will support it well. If a lot of people leave Android for iOS, there will be fewer apps for Android, fewer device options, etc. It's why people have fights over which next-gen console will win - because if they pick the losing device, they might not get a lot of games. I mean, if you bought a Dreamcast, you ended up buying something that never realized its potential because of the social context where game devs didn't make enough games for it.

Our technology is social. If you're not going along with that social context, you're going to miss out on things. In a certain way, you want everyone to support what you like even if it doesn't make sense for them (in terms of time and money).

Again, I understand the pain and there is a lot of consumerism. However, there's also progress in the mix as well. As the social context of the tech changes, you have to keep up with it to an extent. Companies don't want to keep supporting a 20-year-old OS because a few people don't see the need for the new features introduced in newer versions. Should you pay for a support contract for the old OS you want updates for? How expensive should that be given how few people will be paying for the engineering time to make that happen? Likewise, if 3G users want to keep their network around, how much should they pay for their plans to compensate for the fact that they're using a much greater share of a scarce resource (wireless spectrum)? $500/mo rather than $50/mo? It kinda gets to the point that it's realistically impossible since someone isn't going to pay $500/mo instead of upgrading their phone. Likewise, you aren't going to pay thousands per year for a support contract on an obsolete OS.

Cell phones and mobile devices in general have always been disposable items with limited expected lifespans. Instead of worrying about keeping obsolete devices working we should focus on clean disposal and recycling that minimizes waste and pollution.

Keep in mind, the thread you've replied in is related to 3G modems on fire alarm panels. Critical safety infrastructure isn't the same as the latest smart gadget. As we've moved to putting modems on more infrastructure, it's something to keep in mind.

I'm sure we'll see more of this post-5G. There's such a huge push to get 5G-connected IoT devices into every corner of society, we'll have to seriously reconsider how limited the lifespans of these technologies should be.

> Cell phones and mobile devices in general have always been disposable items with limited expected lifespans.

I agree with your second point, but I want to push back on this first point a bit. While it seems like manufacturers benefit from devices being disposable, I don't see a strong reason why they should be.

The reality is that extending the lifespan of devices is one of the best ways to lower consumption. When it comes to changes like retiring 3G, we also have to weigh that against the environmental cost of maintaining the 3G network. Given the maintenance impact, it may end up being a net positive to retire these devices, but it's still an important cost to consider.

To be clear, we should also improve disposal and recycling, but that shouldn't be to the exclusion of reducing and reusing.

I see a very strong reason. It’s not lifespan that matters, it’s attention span.

You could build a device with a 1000 year lifespan, but it’s a waste of effort if the consumer wants a new one after 5 years. It’s optimal to build a device with a lifespan that will only be as long as a consumer’s interest in it.

Fair. Keeping in mind real-world consumer behavior matters to the equation.

That said I don't know that we should assume that "build for longevity" and "build for effective disposal" are mutually exclusive.

Cell phones and mobile devices in general have always been disposable items

Only if you define "always" as post-2010.

Cell phones were for a very long time considered long-term purchases, along the lines of washing machines and refrigerators. It was only when they became fashion accessories and certain companies started relying on pushing out new models every year for no reason other than to boost the balance sheet that they became "disposable."

You're right about the recycling, though. We need more places to recycle e-waste.

I was surprised a couple of years ago when I wanted to recycle an old PowerBook. I assumed that every Apple Store would take used gear. But it turned out that none of the Apple Stores near me would take it. I'd have to drive it four hours away to another city in order for it to be recycled.

That's simply wrong. In the US at least, prior to 2010 cell phones were typically replaced about every 3 years. The Motorola Razr flip phone was absolutely a fashion accessory in 2004; watch some music videos from that era. Motorola and other brands did push out new models every year.

I'm not "simply wrong." I just has a cell phone long before you did.

So you're describing your own behavior, not the typical consumer. I'm on my 10th cell phone since 1996. Most other consumers are about the same.

> Only if you define "always" as post-2010

They were already disposable items in 1999 when I got my first GSM phone. Every other year carriers would push you to upgrade to the latest and greatest with "free phone with contract extension" to get you onto the hot new technologies like WAP, color screens, cameras, MMS, 3G video calling, etc.

> It was only when they became fashion accessories

Nokias with Xpress-on covers were totally a fashion accessory! And there was always that d-bag with a Vertu phone.

Use old and sadly insecure hardware/software?

I think "security" is used as a crutch and an excuse too much.

As a retro hardware enthusiast, very often the hardware isn't insecure. It's just that someone somewhere got lazy or greedy or both and decided to do something that makes the hardware not work right anymore. Things like billion-dollar game companies that shut down servers that cost them all of $5,000 a year to run. It's less than is spent on a single coffee maker, but the company decides to cut off all of its existing customers because they only number in the hundreds, not the millions.

As to "security" — Keeping financial records on a 1982 TRS-80 is far more secure than keeping them on any modern laptop.

Sure the server hardware itself might cost only $5,000 a year, but it can't just be left there on its own forever, as seen with the ongoing log4j vuln. Either it costs that much and puts their entire network at risk, or it costs a lot more due to engineering costs for maintenance.

> $5,000 a year

> It's less than is spent on a single coffee maker

I really want to try this coffee maker.

I think it's also about:

- later recycling frequencies

- reducing maintenance burden (by not maintaining 3G)

- as far as I remember 3G as serious security vulnerabilities

Also most smart phones only a lifetime of 3-5 years at most, and even then people tend to replace them early due to braking them and for vanity.

So there are probably not too many smart phones around which do not support 4G and which are not a security liability. Through probably a bunch of fallback feature phones or other "less common" (then smartphones) kinds of phones.

Also it differs by country.

later recycling frequencies

Yeah this is what I would think. My understanding is that in North America a lot of plum 800MHz bands are currently occupied by 3G umts.

edit - yes, both Verizon and AT&T are dedicating a single band of 850MHz spectrum for umts. So this would let them move that to 4G or 5G.

Something here doesn’t make sense to me.

The retired 3G spectrum will be used for 4G and 5G (per the FCC article) so the antennas could be reused as the carrier frequency will not change. For a concrete example, if you’re running 3G at 900 MHz, why would running 5G at 900 MHz require a different antenna?

On that note, saying the antennas don’t go up to true 5G frequencies is a bit…misleading? Because while the frequency goes up, the wavelength goes down so the antenna should shrink.

That's fair. Unfortunately I don't know the specifics of the hardware involved, and I wasn't there long enough to get a good understanding. I hope someone with more knowledge or industry experience can chime in. All I know that the company I worked for sold a completely new antenna assembly that supported 5G and that our customers were moving to using those antennas.

As far as the size, all of the units we sold have been approximately the same size for quite a while. E.g. all the chasses varied by maybe 6-10" max between the old assemblies and the new. The new ones were larger (maybe more room for power electronics?) I don't know if there was any effort on our part to support 5G transition without replacing our antennas.

Edit: I believe we were pushing new hardware because the services wanted to utilize the high frequency band of FR2 24-56Gz [1] (what I meant by "true 5G") that our old antenna assemblies couldn't support. I assume they couldn't support it because they weren't optimized for those bands at a high enough fidelity for good data transmission.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G#Frequency_range_2_(24%E2%80...

The FR2 hardware requires phased array antennaes for beamforming capability. While it technically could be used without beamforming, it would be extremely inefficient and have even less range than their already limited range. And those MIMO phased array antennaes are crazy expensive...it's still a technology with several active patent encumbrances.

Antennaes can be reused, but radio units and baseband units cannot, and those are by far more expensive. For example, a C-band array of radio units and baseband unit can cost upwards of $80k, while the antennae are a few thousand at most.

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