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After 4 nights, I finished downruleading Linux Mint ISO over 2G EDGE mobile data

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.

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  • 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.

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