Please 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

Add New Zealand to the places that have turned off 3G.

Not really relevant here, because it's not real 2G/3G, but 4G throttled to 2G speed.

2G speeds isn't really full access to "the internet" for some parts of the internet.

My experience with 2G speeds is:

1. Open job application site

2. Upload resume pdf

3. Upload required picture of ID

4. Server's nginx config has a hard-coded timeout after 1 minute. Connection error

5. Try to upload again

6. Connection error

A huge number of pieces of the web have hardcoded timeouts and limits designed to stop slowloris style attacks, and if your connection is slow enough, those will prevent you from ever being able to complete some tasks.

I tried to explain slow loris to a non technical friend, he thought I was joking. The concept of the internet in this day and age is very "cloudy" for a regular user, all pun intended.

You'll need to go to the library then, if you can't manage to watch your data use and use your free phone only for important usage.

I've paid for 2GB/mo for years now. I think I ran out once.

This thread is about how a static text article loaded 500 megs in the background. How would someone prepare for that exactly? This is effectively malware as far as your bandwidth is concerned.

I’ve used travel SIMs that only give you about 5GB. You avoid using the web at all, unless you are on WiFi. You can use maps, train and bus apps, banking apps, messaging, AirBnB etc, but not the web. If you go to some place and they want to use a QR code to buy a ticket or use a menu you may as well forget about it.

With a pay as you go google fi plan... the trick is to use firefox + uBO. If a site opens in the default Android web view, you're fucked.

People on government assistance are just casually going to Starbucks for free wifi? They probably don’t even have a reliable way to get around. Let them eat cake?

There aren't even any Starbucks in these areas :( Best you can do is a McDonald's or Burger King and they hate opening the doors most of the time as they tend to prefer only allowing drive-thru orders.