3G and irony
This weekend my Mobile/Wi-Fi router started to fail. It was still attaching to the network and delivering data but the delivery was so slow even the Google front page was timing out. After a couple of power cycles made no difference, I looked for signs it had been hijacked by next door and cleared the registry. Finally, I took all the antennas off and reattached them. Still the same result; after some initial enthusiasm it very quickly dropped back to an unusable trickle. In the end I put the problem down to age. The router is over five years old, outside warranty and doesn’t owe me anything.
Having exhausted my own very limited technical knowledge I brought the subject up on our Monday morning call. It was one of our sales, Peter, who came up with the answer-
“That’s a 3G unit.” And of course, he was right. Being in the wilds of southern Scotland the router hangs off a single mast. That mast must have been upgraded in the last couple of weeks and lost its 3G capability. That left the unit falling back to what was available, squeezing what it could out of the 2G network. That it supported email was a surprise, but in retrospect as soon as anyone else woke up there just wasn’t enough depth to support even that.
For five years I have been posting pieces about the 3G switch off. About how important it is to check your hardware estate and be sure it will support 4G before those devices is stranded. To think ahead in terms of procurement and perhaps pay that little bit extra to future proof your product. The team enjoyed the irony that I myself had been caught out and were of course very supportive.
3G sunset is happening now and will gather pace through this year. If you are not thinking about 3G you could be looking at months of service issues, support tickets raised and expensive site visits before the estate is stranded entirely. Mobius are working with our customers to identify units that appear to be 3G only so that a swap out plan can be put in place. Talk to us on 01530511180 or [email protected] about your options before it becomes a crisis, or in my case no Netflix.
Douglas Gilmour
