alt Hacker NewsPlease go try and do anything on the internet at 2G speeds in todays world.
You can barely even use FB messenger (you need to get messenger-lite).
I only know this cuz tmobile would give you free 2g all over europe. it was JUST BARELY helpful. mostly just sms and email.
google maps was unusable etc. This only got worse over the years.
They now give you free 3G and it's bearable. 2G is insanely slow in the 2020+ world.
2G ~= 5 KB/s. That means 40 seconds just to download a properly optimized react bundle.
5MB site? 16+ minutes.
> They now give you free 3G and it's bearable
Note that many European countries have already got rid of their 3G networks completely [0]. So it's either "you have 4G/5G" or "the internet is pretty much unusable", nothing in between.
As someone living in a European country with no 3G network, my experience with mobile data is that when my phone fails to find a 4G signal and switches to 2G (pretty much only happens in remote areas, thankfully), I can as well send my packets using a pigeon carrier, they're going to arrive to the destination sooner.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#Phase-out