Moving phone service to Ting - What is 2G?

April 23, 2015 9:55 AM

We are looking at moving to Ting. This will drop my husband's phone down from 3G to 2G. I don't know what that means. Is it capacity and, if so, for what? Speed? I just have no idea. He uses his phone primarily for texting. Phone calls and data usage happen but are pretty rare. Any help understanding this is much appreciated.
posted by harrietthespy to Technology (14 answers total)

Best answer: Speed, basically, if that's all he uses the phone for this sounds like a good trade off.
posted by Cosine at 10:00 AM on April 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

As I understand it, 2G/3G/4G/LTE all refer to what kind of data network a given phone can access. The higher the number, the better the network and the rate at which you can access data from that network (such as when you send and receive texts). By going from a 3G to a 2G network, your husband's phone won't be able to send and receive data as quickly as his current phone can.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:05 AM on April 23, 2015

Get him a new phone. 2G data is enough to text/check e-mails (slowly) but you're basically SOL with surfing the web and even sending pictures can be painfully slow
posted by Oktober at 10:10 AM on April 23, 2015

Best answer: For what it's worth, 2G is preeeetty slow. It's the type of network the original iPhone ran on back in 2007, if I'm not mistaken. Even a modest webpage will take on the order of 30 seconds to a minute to load. As Cosine says, this may not be an issue for your husband, but it's something to consider.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:11 AM on April 23, 2015

Being on a 2G network would make data so slow that most of the modern internet will be effectively unusable. If that doesn't matter he's probably fine, though I wonder where you are located since as far as I know the 2G wireless networks are being phased out in North America and Australia by 2016 to free up those radio bands for other stuff. I know ting supports higher speeds, at least in some places.
posted by Wretch729 at 10:15 AM on April 23, 2015

2G is really slow. Too painful to use modern websites, really. It depends on the particular flavour of 3G that his phone currently is using, but likely at least ten times slower.
posted by ssg at 10:16 AM on April 23, 2015

I don't know why you would be limited to 2G or on what network, but another thing to consider is that the core US providers want to stop using 2G era technology and AT&T, for example, is hoping to sunset it by the end of 2016. I doubt you'll get the best service quality and it may deteriorate over time as they transition off the technology.
posted by selfnoise at 10:17 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: we are in Northern NV. When I enter his phone IMEI number on their website, I'm told his phone, an older Droid Razr, will run on 2G. He understands he may have to upgrade phones sometime this year.

/done threadsitting
posted by harrietthespy at 10:27 AM on April 23, 2015

Best answer: Voice and SMS are encoded differently from data, and will work just as well on 2G as anything newer. For data, 2G is the cellphone equivalent of dialup.
posted by flabdablet at 10:35 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ting runs on Sprint's network. While it seems your (Verizon) Droid Razr is compatible with basic CDMA voice/SMS/data, none of the 3G/4G data options are compatible. I'd buy a cheap, used Sprint phone off of ebay and junk the Razr, or just get something new entirely. It'll work poorly.
posted by Oktober at 1:52 PM on April 23, 2015

Wait, your husband's phone can handle 3G right now, but moving to Ting will drop it to 2G? The Ting website doesn't even mention 2G in its coverage page, though when you look at the GSM coverage map, it shows the 2G areas.

I would hope this means that the 2G areas are ones Ting will upgrade to 3G or beyond at some point (hopefully by 2016, as previously mentioned), but it doesn't look like your husband's current phone will be the limiting factor here.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 2:49 PM on April 23, 2015

Ting runs on the sprint network but roams for free on Verizon...it's like dual-carrier. So maybe they only have access to Verizon's 2g network...I would just call them up and ask them...they're super-helpful.
But yeah, it's probably time for a phone upgrade (and you will be shopping for a sprint phone)...check out swappa.com...it's like ebay for phones.
posted by sexyrobot at 6:43 AM on April 24, 2015

+1 for Cosine and flabdablet's comments. A high data speed/4G network is critical for watching Youtube or doing whatever web browsing.

Since Ting is 3-way a la carte, why not hav Mr. Harrietthespy drop data altogether? Data doesn't appear to be a critical need for him. Away from home or the office, phone calls and text messages are critical; looking up in-game sports scores or watching a Youtube isn't. In addition, doesn't Ting offer unlimited data on Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi is independent of cell network's 2G, 3G or 4G network. Most big-time restaurants, big-time stores, libraries, hospitals/large medical office buildings, municipal centers like court houses and city halls offer Wi-Fi.
posted by dlwr300 at 7:52 AM on April 24, 2015

Given the usage pattern you describe, he will find sending group texts (which are actually multimedia messages, as plain text messages can only have one recipient) will be a bit slower and pictures will be dreadfully slow. Otherwise, it will work the same as it does now.

Messaging that uses data, say WhatsApp, FB Messenger, or GroupMe will not work as well, but will be OK for text-only messages. The main difference for those is the drastically higher latency. You send the message and the server doesn't actually get it for a half second or so. On 3G that's closer to a tenth of a second and on 4G about a twentieth.

So no youtubing or non-mobile websites, but it should otherwise be tolerable. The actual speed you should get is about twice a dialup modem.

Oh, and voice may well sound crappier. I don't know about Verizon and Sprint, but both at&t and T-Mobile use a lower bitrate voice codec on 2G than they do 3G. It's still usable, just muddier sounding.

You might consider looking at PagePlus instead of Ting. It uses Verizon, but is reasonably inexpensive, although not as cheap as Ting. I'm actually a bit surprised that they're saying his phone will only get 2G. Any Verizon phone that does 3G should also do 3G on Sprint's network. (Technically speaking. Sprint refuses to let their customers use phones they don't sell, regardless of compatibility)
posted by wierdo at 2:26 AM on April 26, 2015