Bushwalk Australia

Hi,

There are some older 4 G phones that may not work for 000 calls after the coming 3 G network switch off ...

The ABC has a list here
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-08/ ... 64#devices

For example
iPhone 5/5S/5C
Samsung S5
Nokia 301

Might be time for a phone update...

More on this topic at ITNews as well.

I stuck with my trusty old iPhone 3S until this year because it still does the few things I need from a phone. Pissed off that I've had to upgrade while the old unit works perfectly.
5G better be worth all the stuffing around trying to get a new handset working properly.

Heck I still miss analogue for the huge range I used to get with my original Nokia 101
Why can't we use both 3G and 4G for *&^%$# sake

Moondog55 wrote:Why can't we use both 3G and 4G for *&^%$# sake

Too much trouble (and expense, which means reduced profit) in maintaining all the different infrastructure, one presumes. The worst is that Telstra at least have said they will not be putting in towers to cover the areas that are losing coverage due to 3G being shut down.
I don't miss analogue, but I do miss the days when Telecom Australia was a public company and actually operated in the best interests of the population instead of being a purely profit driven corporate monster.

I'm all for the 'Guvmint" legislating to minimize corpseporate profit

The advice has been out there to update for many months now.

Just update your phone to 4G or 5G if there is any doubt whatsoever about connectivity with emergency services.
It doesn't cost a fortune for a second-hand unit (and there are many thousands out there ready for a new home), and transferring apps from old to new is fast and simple. Technology waits for nobody. 3G has had its run. 4G is next in 3-4 years as 5G beds down for a few more, with 6G on the mid-term horizon.

north-north-west wrote:I stuck with my trusty old iPhone 3S until this year because it still does the few things I need from a phone. Pissed off that I've had to upgrade while the old unit works perfectly.
5G better be worth all the stuffing around trying to get a new handset working properly.

You just don't know what you are missing with 5G.

And what's with the stuffing around "trying to get a new handset working properly"?
There are people to help, or just link old and new phones (by wifi or cable) and transfer apps and settings.
I have shown my 88 year old brother in law how to do this, and he has since done it for others!

Linking an ancient iPhone with a new Android isn't the easiest thing to do, especially for a cybercretin. I neither need nor want all the flash new apps and capabilities of a smartphone, just something that will send and receive texts, make notes, and take a photo or two when the dSLR isn't handy. The 3S did that and even let me play sudoku free and offline. The first time I tried upgrading (Samsung) the *&%$#! thing refused to accept a gmail address that I'd been using for going on twenty years, nor would it accept any other existing addresses. No-one could make it behave, not even the supplier. So now I have a Motorola for which I can't even find a practical note/list app because everything I've looked at works on similar templates that won't do what I want.

Newer is not always better.

It's not the complexity that I'm annoyed about, I don't need or want high speed internet in the bush. It's the lack of range/distance that bugs me and the forecast of multiple black spots/dead spots when you get more than 5 or so klicks from a tower in certain areas and the probable lack of ability to call triple zero when out in the country. Bad enough now

Moondog55 wrote:It's not the complexity that I'm annoyed about, I don't need or want high speed internet in the bush. It's the lack of range/distance that bugs me and the forecast of multiple black spots/dead spots when you get more than 5 or so klicks from a tower in certain areas and the probable lack of ability to call triple zero when out in the country. Bad enough now

Fair enough, I have little use for high speed connectivity when I am in the sticks too, a time when the phone is usually off and I play Candy Crush Saga or Solitaire.

But...hang, on...you think 5G has a "lack of range/distance"?
It does not. And "when you get more than 5 or so klicks"is more a problem with the phone, not the network!

I have 4G and 5G where I am. G-Town also has strong 4G and 5G. I have family down there and none of them are using 3G or 4G. There are also no blackspots in Geelong, nor all the way from Geelong to Melbourne by train or by car.Why? Because Telstra installed three towers between Corio and Wyndham Vale — all 4G and 5G-ready. No blackouts or knockbacks on the train or road (edit: Telstra was actually instructed by Infrastructure Australia to work to eliminate those blackspots)

When I signed up for (what was then) Telstra Mobilenet waaaaay back in 1992 (in Bendigo),there were only 844 subscribers to Telstra at that time (in the Greater Bendigo area, on the cusp of a building boom!). Nobody could have imagined the colossal explosion of technology that followed in the following decades that necessitated more towers, greater range,higher power devices (and greater variety than the heavy, clunky, shoebox-sized phones of the day) to pull in signals and critically, educating the public how the system works — a major failing in the early years of mobile communications.Without Telstra,Vodafone, Optus...others too, and no mobile connectivity, you'd be puffing smoke under a blanket to send out a list of shopping needs!

The 3G system cannot cope with the volume of communications, and 4G has served its purpose as the network has grown and grown exponentially. Whose fault is that? Telstra? Vodafone? Optus? None of those. The fault rests with the public ceaselessly lusting after mobile communication and prepared to pay anything for it: demand exceeded supply over and over again, and the mess we have now is that towers are specking the landscape in the most intrusive places. On that point, expect to see a tower near Wonnangatta in the near future! There is a tower nearby me in the bush (between Campbells Creek and Fryerstown) disguised in a tree!

north-north-west wrote:Linking an ancient iPhone with a new Android isn't the easiest thing to do, especially for a cybercretin. I neither need nor want all the flash new apps and capabilities of a smartphone, just something that will send and receive texts, make notes, and take a photo or two when the dSLR isn't handy. The 3S did that and even let me play sudoku free and offline. The first time I tried upgrading (Samsung) the *&%$#! thing refused to accept a gmail address that I'd been using for going on twenty years, nor would it accept any other existing addresses. No-one could make it behave, not even the supplier. So now I have a Motorola for which I can't even find a practical note/list app because everything I've looked at works on similar templates that won't do what I want.

Newer is not always better.

You know, long time ago, somebody muttered dismissively under furrowed brows as the b'loved Penny Farthing was making way for the bicycle we know today, "newer is not always better."

What came next through the century and a bit was quite the revelation over the Father of Bicycles, don't you think?

Mobile phones have pervaded every facet of modern day life. They are inescapable and indispensable — possibly the greatest travesty we have invented.
Even bicycles use mobile phones now. Before I recently bought my GIANT TCR road bike after years of riding an ancient mountain bike with sticky cables, recalcitrant gears and knobby tyres that would put a Massey Ferguson to shame, I too, also thought, 'nah, newer isn't always better...'. (the techie in the shop heard me say it!) But what a brutal (and fun) revelation to ride a bike that clicks gears *precisely* by Bluetooth/ANT+, and links to a phone to keep records!

Phones can be as simple or as cluttered as you wish. True dinks: I rarely use mine to actually make a phone call!
I don't have flash apps on my Samsung: TypeMail, Opera and Firefox, ColorNote and MS OneNote when networking, a couple of games to pass idle time in the tent, or even longer idle times in Doctors' waiting rooms; text, messaging and the ubiquitous camera that shamed the digital camera that cost me a fortune in Dunedin in 2014! The aforementioned GIANT roadie bike has two apps: one for the computer and one for the derailleurs and power meter in the transmission (power = watts of physical output, not "battery remaining!" ). I refuse to use FaceAche, InstaCrap and whatever other antisocial offerings from the proverbial "spies that love us"!

I'm sure there will be something, somewhere for the Moto'. You could also try voice notes: so what could be more affirming than listening to your own voice to send you off to noddy land, hmm?

Biggles wrote:"when you get more than 5 or so klicks"is more a problem with the phone, not the network!

Exactly. 4G coverage overlaps 3G (more or less), but does way more things. VoLTE (the way of carrying voice calls over 4G) works just fine, it's just that some older phones don't play well with it. It's pointless to maintain two parallel networks offering (roughly) equivalent coverage when one far exceeds the other in functionality for the sake of supporting some legacy phones that are on their last legs. Just because you have to upgrade to a more functional handset doesn't mean you need to use all that functionality, at the end of the day it's still just a network providing data connectivity and if all you want is to make voice calls and send texts then it'll serve those purposes just as capably as 3G. As has been said above, this isn't new, it's been happening and well-communicated for a long time. And it'll happen again, eg. when 6G becomes the service of choice in built-up areas and lower frequency (where the wider coverage comes from) 4G towers are gradually upgraded with 5G equipment. People demand more and more data capacity, lower latency, more connections etc, and the industry responds. It's "our" fault the networks are always evolving.

I ski around Falls Creek area, out back of the PV campsite and towards Mt Jim. Already massive dead spots around there and the camp site itself and the old PV hut are well known dead spots. But way back I could get excellent analogue signals from there.Also and regarding the ol' Penny Farthing .......... I think that the Velocopede came first.
Cecile likes me to call in and say "G'Nite" I don't always want to ski back 3 klicks uphill to do so, selfish I know but I'm getting lazy in my old age.
I have a brand new Samsung and I really don't like it. I don't use 90% of its functions, I get multiple gigabytes of data in out shared plan and use kilobytes, and mainly for GoogleMaps when I'm too lazy to get out the old Melways

Moondog55 wrote:I ski around Falls Creek area, out back of the PV campsite and towards Mt Jim. Already massive dead spots around there and the camp site itself and the old PV hut are well known dead spots. But way back I could get excellent analogue signals from there.Also and regarding the ol' Penny Farthing .......... I think that the Velocopede came first.
Cecile likes me to call in and say "G'Nite" I don't always want to ski back 3 klicks uphill to do so, selfish I know but I'm getting lazy in my old age.
I have a brand new Samsung and I really don't like it. I don't use 90% of its functions, I get multiple gigabytes of data in out shared plan and use kilobytes, and mainly for GoogleMaps when I'm too lazy to get out the old Melways

I have been to PV several times, and the PV hut. The reception there is 4G on my Galaxy, with 5G available at Falls Creek (also Hotham). There is no analogue network now; you'd sometimes get LTE (long-term evolution) cellular. People need to move on from tugging at the forelocks of bygone technology like, 3G and soon, 4G.

Google Maps guzzles Mbs; around 5Mb over a short period of time unless you are using offline maps.

The 'Boneshaker' (aka velocipede) was a very early 1800s, and far less efficient (though popularised amongst the gentry of the day) as a method of transport than the PF that followed, an invention that pretty much revolutionised bicycles going forward, particularly the later "bright idea" of switching the drive wheel to the rear by chain — that put a stop to "head over heels" stunts when applying the brake on the PF!

As an aside, 'Charlie' Farren (Melbourne) is a collector of antique bicycles from the 1800s. The Farren Collection is so big it requires a warehouse (originally in her home years ago). Her (late) husband Paul and she have been collecting for decades.
====> https://cyclestyle.com.au/incredible-fa ... melbourne/

Biggles wrote: You could also try voice notes: so what could be more affirming than listening to your own voice to send you off to noddy land, hmm?

What could be more useless to a deaf person than voice notes?

I'm not going to bother with the rest of your patronising lecture. I have no objections to tech per se. I do object to being forced into paying for things that I don't need in order to get the small part of them that I do need.

A patronising lecture.
Speal of the devil...

And—
a cochlear implant is a wonderful thing

Even to deaf people.

Biggles wrote:And—
a cochlear implant is a wonderful thing

Even to deaf people.

It is if the implant works for that particular person; not everyone can adapt to them, especially with later onset deafness.
They are particularly useless for people whose problem is wiith the auditory nerves. People like me, for instance. Because you need a viable auditory nerve and I don't have any.

But don't worry. I'm sure there's an app on that fancy phone that will help you remove your feet from your mouth without taking any teeth along with them.

north-north-west wrote:

Biggles wrote:And—
a cochlear implant is a wonderful thing

Even to deaf people.

It is if the implant works for that particular person; not everyone can adapt to them, especially with later onset deafness.
They are particularly useless for people whose problem is wiith the auditory nerves. People like me, for instance. Because you need a viable auditory nerve and I don't have any.

But don't worry. I'm sure there's an app on that fancy phone that will help you remove your feet from your mouth without taking any teeth along with them.

<sigh>
My deafness is binaural sensorineural profound deafness, aka auditory nerve deafness.
And my Ci came almost 50 years since the onset of deafness. And it works.
Wherever are you plucking your stuff from, the side panel of a corn flakes packet??

Two bald people, fighting over a comb. Has North-west met her match? If so, then a fellow giant.

Biggles wrote:<sigh>
My deafness is binaural sensorineural profound deafness, aka auditory nerve deafness.
And my Ci came almost 50 years since the onset of deafness. And it works.
Wherever are you plucking your stuff from, the side panel of a corn flakes packet??

I'm plucking it from decades of advice from audiologists, most recently at the end of last year. If it works for you, fine. I''ve had repeated, professional assessments, all followed by advice that it is not an option for me.

vagrom wrote:Two bald people, fighting over a comb. Has North-west met her match? If so, then a fellow giant.

Their match, please.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for offering medical advice. I'm also not sure if there is a right thread for offering medical advice.

Son of a Beach wrote:I'm not sure if this is the right thread for offering medical advice. I'm also not sure if there is a right thread for offering medical advice.

If you're a nurse (as I was!), or a doctor, cough up.
Otherwise, I think we're now beyond help.

Biggles wrote:Otherwise, I think we're now beyond help.

Yeah, just like my hearing.

north-north-west wrote:Linking an ancient iPhone with a new Android isn't the easiest thing to do, especially for a cybercretin. I neither need nor want all the flash new apps and capabilities of a smartphone, just something that will send and receive texts, make notes, and take a photo or two when the dSLR isn't handy. The 3S did that and even let me play sudoku free and offline. The first time I tried upgrading (Samsung) the *&%$#! thing refused to accept a gmail address that I'd been using for going on twenty years, nor would it accept any other existing addresses. No-one could make it behave, not even the supplier. So now I have a Motorola for which I can't even find a practical note/list app because everything I've looked at works on similar templates that won't do what I want.
.

NNW, I have a Samsung it it uses Samsung Notes which has worked well over several generations of mobile devices.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... l=en&gl=US

I live in a household with 3 different brands of Android devices and everyone has upgraded within the last 6 months to 5g devices. None of the devices were bought brand new in box so big $$ were not required. Transferring the data from the old phone was seamless with one exception as we also have changed providers. it was a mystery how one tele company could allow an account in a different name to the owner of the mobile number, which then created difficulties with changing to a new provider!