Hi - I live in a rural area (= poor signal) but my (Pixel 5) phone will pick up a 4G signal in only a short distance from my house (which is in a valley). My dog wears a GPS tracking device which communicates on 2G but the device appears not to connect when my phone does.
I had always assumed that the presence of a 4G signal meant you also had a 3G and 2G signal (i.e., that 4G degrades to 3G etc) but my experience with the tracking device suggests this may not be so. Anybody know how this works?
They are different standards and protocols so supporting of 4G (standards and protocols) does not automatically imply supporting of an older standard or protocol in a particular base station/cell tower (except so far as an explicit dependency is written in such as 5G NSA depending on 4G).
2G, 3G & 4G are just different radio technologies.
In most locations, there is overlapping coverage, but there are areas where EE service is only available on 4G. This has nothing to do with the technology, and is merely because of the "extended range" frequencies being used.
Depending what device/SIM combination you're using, you may fallback to 2G or 3G to make & receive calls.
