Just because I can.
But it also proves 2G is still at least somewhat usable.
I would just switch my phone to 2G only and then continue the download in Termux using wget because that’s most reliable way to download files.
I let it run overnight, then stop it when I needed my phone during the day, then let it run again at night when not needed anymore.
However, 2G is quite inefficient, so this actually drains the battery a lot.
I wonder if the carrier just sees a weird spike in 2G data usage.
Anyway, calculation time. Wikipedia Kiwix ZIM file is approximately 110GB. 109,886,078,976B to be precise. With average speed of say 21KB/s, it would take around 2 months to download the whole English Wikipedia with low res pictures over 2G EDGE.
But also EDGE is quite better than original GSM Data (CSD), which offered breathtaking 9600bps.
> 4 nights to download
> Somewhat usable
Hmmm
I mean… this is cool and an interesting experiment, but I don’t really get why. I used to have DSL internet back into the day, and I remember how bad it was - I’d never want to return to those speeds.
The first sentence.
And there’s also the thing that I just like seeing old tech still being used. For the last week of 3G before its shutdown, I switched my phone to 3G only, all the way until my phone got disconnected. It felt sad to see it go.
Plus I like to influence statistics, so I do certain things differently, just to influence them. I understand that I am a small sample, but still one that counts.I still use a CRT TV on a regular basis. Ive also always wanted to try doing a true mid 90s DOS gaming build 😂 obsolete tech has always fascinated me.
I get it. And I also very much like hearing about these kinda stories. It’s so wholesome and nostalgic/bittersweet
But wouldn’t you arguably achieve the same goal through simple calculations? It’s not like there isn’t substantial records of the technology at it’s height, since it was the standard at one point. I’d imagine it would have been a much more efficient use of electricity to plug an equation for the estimate with a calculator.
Not the slight influence on statistics. I am contemplating actually downloading the Wikipedia over 2G too.
I wish the statistics were published, I’d like to see how much of a dent it makes, at least in total monthly data transfer. And of course, also connection time by technology and frequency band. Actually, no, I want to see all the statistics they have.
Sadly, the only ISP that publishes at least something is the Slovak Academic Network (SANET): https://samon.bts.sk/mapa/
But this is just a fixed connection ISP used at places like schools.Plus it’s cool how the bytes got to me.
I downloaded a release of Rocket Arena 3 for Quake III in the early 2000s over 56k. 120Mb-ish at 1Mb per five minute.
This was when unmetered tarrifs were on the rise (BT Free Weekend anyone?) which forced a disconnect at the 2hr mark, meaning a download manager was essential.
Nobody got any calls that evening or night.
e: corrected shite maths
Imagine waiting all that time and then realizing somehow the hash is wrong, and having to get it again. Genuinely surprised to hear someone using 2G data, given 3G was phased out as is. Didn’t even realize you could. At an average of 21KB/s,
I genuinely had a faster internet connection with dial-up when I was a kid, which as I recall reached exciting speeds like 35KB/s sometimes.Misremembered, it averaged 35Kb/s, so it was significantly slower than 2G (4KB/s vs 21KB/s). It also made cool ass sounds when you connected, truly a marvelous experience.I think you’re mixing it up with Kb/s. Bits vs bytes. 21KB/s is 168Kb/s, which is faster than the fastest dial-up.
I know the difference, but I guess I just misremembered if it’s literally impossible. When I downloaded stuff it did tend to hang around 30-40 though, so if that is Kb/s instead, I guess my amazing speeds were actually a little over 4KB/s. I definitely for sure had dial-up though, we were on the AOL plan for quite a long time.
Also about:
Genuinely surprised to hear someone using 2G data, given 3G was phased out as is.
At least in some countries around Europe, 3G was shutdown rather than 2G. It used up more bandwidth, and most devices can still fallback to 2G, plus at least in Slovakia 2G had superior coverage. Well, still has over 4G/5G.
Plus there’s a lot of 2G-only IoT devices like electric and gas meters, and those companies are less likely to upgrade than individual customers.So far, only Orange plans to shutdown 2G, sometime around 2028. I’ve also seen an idea to keep one single 2G network that would be shared between all 4 carriers, which is an idea I quite like.
Remember, it’s also a fallback for modern devices when VoLTE/VoWiFi/VoNR doesn’t work.
Yeah if this was done over torrent it would have some more bandwidth overhead, but each chunk is hashed individually so a network failure would be relatively minor rather than trying to get the entire thing in one go
I remembered when 120kb/s is fast for me back in 2015 (yes I started to use internet in 2015 when I was 14) now 512kb/s is dog slow even 1mb/s is hard to swallow, rn I have 5mb/s and it’s a bare minimum to browse the web smoothly. My head probably go bald if I have to use anything below 512kb/s again.
I should note it’s not all about speed, but also latency. Even 256kbps on 2G EDGE is sluggish while 256kbps throttled 4G is pretty usable for web browsing.
Although it also depends on how the limiting is done. Some may allow some higher burst rate, some may limit to the speed with queue, some may just drop all packets above the speed.
I like this diagram from Cisco to visualize it:
And everyone else who needed to use EDGE hated you because you blocked all the bandwidth with your bullshit
A lot of US networks have disabled 2G entirely and the lowest service they have now is 3G.
Wget is not the most reliable way to download files over a narrow network link. You would want a protocol that supports arbitrary data chunk downloading.
