It was really weird going back to Europe and have my phone on 3g half the time. I just never see that in Japan. It’s either 4/5g or nothing at all.
South sweden this almost never happens, here in north Sweden in can happen that you drop down to 2G and can only do SMS but then you really have to go deep into the forests. Up in the mountains you will lose connection completely though. Especially now when they shut down the older networks that has longer reach.
The 4g drops I’m talking about are on the train network between two major cities.
That includes the sort of places where medical help comes on a plane[0] because it's too far from anywhere for a helicopter.