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AT&T Iphone Communications Network Networking Software Apple

AT&T Shuts Down 2G Network, Ends Cellular Connectivity For Original iPhone (macrumors.com) 128

Posted by BeauHD from the beginning-of-the-end dept.
ATT yesterday announced that its 2G wireless network was officially shut down on January 1, 2017. Since the network is no longer active, it means that, as the Verge points out, the original first-generation iPhone (also known as the iPhone 2G) will no longer receive cellular service from ATT's network. If you still happen to use an iPhone 2G, it may be time to upgrade or list it on eBay. Mac Rumors reports: Few people appear to have been using the original iPhone as there were no complaints from iPhone owners two weeks ago when the network was shuttered, but going forward, customers who keep the device as part of a collection will only be able to use it on WiFi. Originally released in June of 2007 and discontinued in 2008, the first iPhone was made obsolete by Apple back in 2013, and it has not received software updates since the 2009 release of iPhone OS 3, later renamed iOS 3. According to ATT, shutting down its 2G network frees up valuable spectrum for future network technologies, including 5G. ATT says the spectrum will be repurposed for LTE.
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AT&T Shuts Down 2G Network, Ends Cellular Connectivity For Original iPhone More

AT&T Shuts Down 2G Network, Ends Cellular Connectivity For Original iPhone

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  • Leaf off the air too (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Moof123 ( 1292134 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @08:54PM (#53686489)

    This same service was used for my Nissan Leaf. I can no longer pre-heat or check the charge status remotely without paying for a modem swap.

    Dumb that cars that should be targeting a 15-20 year life span are larded up with the current flavor of the month that will be obsolete in a fraction of that. Wish it had WIFI so I could maintain the remote pre-heat functionality at home at least.

    • Why is it that car manufacturers cannot do this type of technology? It should have been obvious that 2G would be shut down within a few years of the car's manufacture.

      Last year, Nissan's "mobile app" stopped interacting with Pandora for months. It's crazy: a multi-billion dollar company can't keep an app updated so that it actually works. Also, who names their app: "Mobile App"? Really Nissan, there are apps that are not mobile? It's not even something like "Nissan Mobile".

      • At least you get Pandora, TripAdvisor, etc.. Us Infiniti owners just got a broken promise with our Q50s. The jack wipe managing the Airbiquity Choreo integration (branded InTouch) never bothered to turn on anything other than Facialbook and Google Search. I guess they prefer drivers to fumble with the phones they're streaming from via bluetooth instead.

        • Re:Leaf off the air too (Score:4, Interesting)

          by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @10:03PM (#53686767) Homepage

          At least you get Pandora, TripAdvisor, etc.. Us Infiniti owners just got a broken promise with our Q50s. The jack wipe managing the Airbiquity Choreo integration (branded InTouch) never bothered to turn on anything other than Facialbook and Google Search. I guess they prefer drivers to fumble with the phones they're streaming from via bluetooth instead.

          As someone who just rented a car with Apple Carplay for the first time, I wish they would just STOP IT with the touchscreens and just have radios that pair quickly with bluetooth devices and can swap between devices without going 7 menus deep. Showing the currently playing song is plenty. I don't need any more information than that. My phone knows how to interrupt my Pandora music with Waze navigation prompts or any other notification. Even this basic function seemed too difficult for Carplay to do.

          If they absolutely must have a touchscreen in the car, let it handle the car stuff and only the car stuff. I have never seen an phone-integrated car app system that worked well. And I travel roughly 75% of the time and cycle through a LOT of different rental cars of all makes and models. It's mostly all rubbish. The least annoying ones are the simplest ones which only handle basic bluetooth functions.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mlts ( 1038732 )

            Car makers need to stick to stuff that runs on the CAN, and well away from consumer electronics that get chucked in a year or two. Oddly enough one of the better audio heads I've used was the one on my Ford. It doesn't have a touch-screen display, but buttons and dials. However, Bluetooth works, and has worked with a large array of Apple, Motorola, and HTC phones. If I need navigation, that is what a suction cup holder, smartphone, and Siri can be used for. People made fun of Windows Automotive, but I

            • If I need navigation, that is what a suction cup holder, smartphone, and Siri can be used for.

              It's illegal to use a device suction-cupped to the windshield in California, although amusingly not radar detectors because you don't have to touch them, and they are permitted here. A decent bolt-in cellphone mount is upwards of a hundred bucks.

              • Interesting... is attaching it to the window in the wording? We have what is basically a sandbag with a arm mount for our GPS that just sits on the dash. Don't have to worry about anything popping off into your lap, either.

                • Interesting... is attaching it to the window in the wording?

                  Yes. (Too lazy to look up the cite just now, but not too lazy to reply, hope that counts for something)

                  • Hey if I wasn't lazy I could've looked it up myself... or a Futurama lazy guy quote or something

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Chaset ( 552418 )

                    The wording is to the effect that you're not allowed to have a video display visible to the driver in any way, with a specific exception for video displays specifically dedicated to navigation or vehicle information.

                    I'm also too lazy to look it up but that's what I remember.

            • Touch screens in cars are the dumbest fucking idea that has ever been. There is no tactile feedback, so you have to take your eyes off the road to use the fucking thing. Every time.

              I have no idea how they are legal, other than the stupid message that comes up every time you start the car that basically says "don't use this unless you are pulled over and parked." Which nobody does.

              BMW spent over a decade to get their iDrive (now ConnectedDrive) system to be what it is today, and it's probably the best-of-

        • At least you get Pandora, TripAdvisor, etc.

          The only app that I have that works is Pandora. Google search doesn't work and I don't have any of the other apps on my phone.

      • Yeah, well, it's an opportunity to sell a bunch of new modems. What should be happening is that we should have a cheap, reliable standard for data transmission at low speed that comes as a standard interface on everything, so that when you need to change the way you transmit (say, a new frequency or underlying wireless technology) for these low-data-rate devices, you just replace a fairly generic (and cheap) modem. We could call it... RS-232.
      • I think that car manufacturers aren't really forward thinking, also many of their designs take years to finish design, so it's likely they decided on that service 2-3 years before, and just didn't update it to deal with the probable changes in the near future.

      • Re: Leaf off the air too (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm sure the car use GSM 2G in part because AT&T sales pushed it as a cost saving competitive advantage. ~4 years ago we had an AT&T sales woman at work giving us a presentation. At the time AT&T was pushing M2M devices to use GSM as the payloads were small and the monthly cost was cheap. (Interestingly the T-Mobile material we got was much more focused on their 3G and HSPA offerings.)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Because 2G service was cheap as shit, and when the car manufacturer is footing the bill, they're not going to pick the UltiBest(tm) service.

        It's Nissan, not Mercedes.

        For what it's worth, BMW has been using 3G for their car connectivity for like a decade now.

      • This is why I like to buy used rental cars - in addition to not having leather seats (I prefer cloth, especially on a hot day), they typically have very simple stereos and lack a lot of the bells and whistles that often break or become obsolete. I'd much rather clip my smartphone into a holder and have the very latest nav technology, up to date maps, and entertainment options.

      • They used 2G in the original Leaf because 2G modems were far less expensive than 3G modems at the time, and because they had much better coverage. The discontinuance of the 2G network also made old credit card machines and some monitored devices like water meters stop working because they also used the old 2G network; bricking all those old data devices probably had much more impact than killing off ancient iPhones.

    • Re:Leaf off the air too (Score:5, Insightful)

      by certsoft ( 442059 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @09:27PM (#53686659) Homepage
      I think the newer Leafs got a free replacement modem, older ones had to pay. Ford provided free replacement 3G modems for the Focus Electric and the two Energi PHEV models. Kind of surprised me. So my "MyFord Mobile" finally started working for me at the end of November after I got the new modem. We have AT&T 3G, never did have 2G here because the tower was installed after the announced 2G shutdown back in August 2012. Of course, Ford's software still sucks.
    • What's dumb is that my 2015 Infiniti Q50 was dependent upon their 2G service for connectivity to the mothership. It was contractually known by Nissan that the 2G telematics control unit they selected for their brand new Q50 model (2014 first release) was dependent upon a service that'd go dark in 3 years. It wasn't until the 2016 model year that they switched to something newer, even then some of their other 2016 models were being churned out with the 2G TCU for a portion of 2016. Additionally, that 2G s

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > Dumb that cars that should be targeting a 15-20 year life span are larded up with the current flavor of the month that will be obsolete in a fraction of that.

      To add to certsoft's comment: EDGE was first deployed by AT&T in 2003. GSM was deployed _much_ earlier.

      Not only does 14+ years for a tech meet your lifespan criteria, drop-in replacement modems are provided -gratis- for two-year-old Leafs, available for ~$200 for older Leafs, and have been available for at least six months. What's more, there

    • They add these features because there are indeed customers who are swayed by them. So who is dumber, the auto maker or the auto customer? And believe me, there are customers out there right now thinking "2G was a dumb choice, but at least 4G won't go obsolete in 15 years."

      Of course you should expect *some* years out of the service at least. I bought a new phone once and a few months later they started transitioning to GSM and connectivity on it started getting worse and worse. All the while I would get

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Seems the problem here is that different industries have wildly different concepts of a 'reasonable lifespan'. Keep your smart phone more than two years and many people think you're a luddite. Plenty of people keep their cars through a typical 4 year payment term, and plenty more keep them far longer. I drive cars into the ground.

        Of course both industries still try to get their customers into the tightest upgrade cycle they can manage, but that result is much different between cars and phones. I agree

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          In the USA, the average term of a car loan currently exceeds 60 months (5+ years).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      You should wish for a car with modular systems, that way you can swap out the radio. But a lot of 2G gear is still out there, alarm systems, remote controllers for all sorts of stuff, scientific and other telemetry, iPhones were some of the older 2G devices, 2G was commonplace in Androids up until only a few years ago.

    • I'm happier without touchscreen controls in my car. All that stuff is going to age terribly and from the complaints posted here work stops when the car ships. You still can't beat tactile knobs and switches for control.

      • You still can't beat tactile knobs and switches for control.

        Good voice control works better still, for navigation and phone calls anyway. I love Android Auto, but I hate having to use touch for anything more than extremely basic control.

    • I'm willing to bet that the original Nook e-reader used it too - the non-WiFi eInk version.

      Dated it may be, but the battery life is a lot better than on tablet Nooks.

      • You're wrong. The version of the original Nook with cellular connectivity used AT&T 3G service - in other words, HSDPA. I don't know exact details, but they're unlikely to implement the higher speed HSPA+ modes. That was the only Nook device with cellular data capability.

        The first two models of the Kindle and the original Kindle DX used CDMA2000 3G connectivity from Sprint. All later models with cellular capability use 3G from AT&T.

    • US is not the world? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I just wanted to say that Nissan is a Global/Japanese/French car brand and the US is just one country, a huge one but with its idiosyncrasies.
      In most countries approximately 100% of mobile phones support GSM, I never heard of 2G being phased out as every operator supports it and I thought it's what regular calls / SMS use. Dumb phones still are widely available. This would be about as dumb as proposals to turn off FM radio, perhaps worse as many rely on being able to be called by a temporary job agency for

    • Dumb that cars that should be targeting a 15-20 year life span are larded up with the current flavor of the month that will be obsolete in a fraction of that. Wish it had WIFI so I could maintain the remote pre-heat functionality at home at least.

      I agree. I had a Nissan Leaf on a lease and I liked the car, but life changes made me need to get to one car and with distant relatives I need to visit I couldn't really make the Leaf work for me as an only vehicle. My lease ended with 2G still working, but a co-worker recently had his modem replaced. I think there was some charge for labor for doing the work. The problem is that AT&T has done this kind of thing before and businesses go with it because it's cheap with no long term thought that AT

    • Dumb that cars that should be targeting a 15-20 year

      The average car in North America is on the road about 10 years. That being said, the tech should not be incrusted into the car. They should drive that tech off smart phones which appear to remain backwards compatible for years. The worst case is that it doesn't support a newer version of the app but at least remains supported with the old app.

      The car company in this case was dumb to only include a 2G modem (cost savings I guess). At the time of release of the vehicle, the tech was already on it's way out.

  • Good! (Score:5, Funny)

    by plague911 ( 1292006 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @08:56PM (#53686501)
    If only we could now shut down, AM, FM, Broadcast TV and Postal Delivery on Saturdays maybe we can start to modernize the hell out of the 70000 mile/hour dirtball. Nah just kidding I am just glad vaccines are gone so polio can make a come back. Lets make polio great again.

  • Washing & reusing Ziploc baggies (Score:5, Funny)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @09:01PM (#53686537) Journal

    Originally released in June of 2007 and discontinued in 2008

    If you're still using a phone you've had for 9.5 years, my hat's off to you, you thrifty bastard.

    • Re:Washing & reusing Ziploc baggies (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @09:22PM (#53686633) Journal

      I'm one of those thrifty bastards...almost.

      I have a Sanyo Katana LX, purchased in January 2009. It still makes phone calls, it still sends and receives texts, and its battery lasts a week with the light use I give it.

      I avoid upgrading for four reasons: 1) It's no longer subsidized by the major players. 2) Even a new flip phone costs a minimum of $100. 3) Both my wife and my brother-in-law gave me their old phones, so if mine is lost or broken, I have spares. and 4) I dislike the disposable culture of today, given that we cannot infinitely replace old electronics with a finite supply of building materials.

      • I dislike the disposable culture of today, given that we cannot infinitely replace old electronics with a finite supply of building materials.

        As long as you can live with the knowledge that your miserly tendencies are cheating a 25th Century landfill miner out of rare earth elements. [pbs.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        I'm one of those thrifty bastards...almost.

        I have a Sanyo Katana LX, purchased in January 2009. It still makes phone calls, it still sends and receives texts, and its battery lasts a week with the light use I give it.

        I was in the same boat. Up until last month I was using a Nokia 6030 (so, 2005 vintage) as my cell phone. I didn't own a single handset for 10 years continuously, because there was a couple times I had to replace it for something actually not working on the one I had -- but I'd just go on eBay and buy another of the exact model. I'd disable the internal memory so all my contacts would save to the SIM by default, and I could just move it to a new one, taking everything with me if I needed to. Battery lasted

      • Where are you shopping for flip phones? Dollar General sells them and even Android phones for like $40.

        • Where are you shopping for flip phones? Dollar General sells them and even Android phones for like $40.

          But they also tell a bunch of toxic plastic shit and burns my nose, and probably has lead paint on it to boot. I won't even go in that shithole, it literally gives me a headache.

      • how about 20-30 bucks?

        christssakes, even nokia x (an android nokia) was 80 bucks _new_ couple of years ago.

        there's many unsubsidized smartphones you can choose for under 100 bucks. many, many MANY.

    • And completely insecure since 2009. That's not thrift, that's risk. It might also be the worst thing Apple does - leaving users vulnerable to and ever expanding set of threats because they can't be bothered to patch their software. Why? Is it apathy? Is it greed - forcing people to spend $700 for support they're already entitled to rather than spending money to patch the holes? Whatever the reason, it's shitty behavior.
      • That's a good point I hadn't thought of, but on the other hand, how well does an original iPhone handle the modern web? If you're just using it for phone, texting, and some email it is probably secure enough.
        • Every few months there's a story here about some dastardly thing that can be done with a "specially crafted SMS message", so security patches are always necessary, no matter how limited the feature set.

          My first smartphone of any sort was a company issued iPhone 4. I remember that the first version of iOS I couldn't install was chock full of important security patches. I had a 1st Gen iPad, same situation. Apple only updates the latest version of iOS, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. [profanit

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by eionmac ( 949755 )

      My phone is from 2002. Still in use in UK. Phones ok, texts ok. Nothing more required.

  • I realize that was a consumer-level link, but still... I expect better from Slashdot.

    There are plenty of other devices out there that are still liable to use 2G that are now effectively bricked. The iPhone is probably the least likely of them to cause a real concern for people. (Though, hell, until 2 years ago my parents were still on 2G PCS phones (not through AT&T though).)

    How is rural 3G coverage these days? I remember when the analog shut down happened, there were folks out there who needed lots of

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      a ham auto-patch is not a substitute for a cell phone. you are not allowed to conduct commercial business on amateur radio and that includes ordering a pizza or calling the water company.

      if you use your cell phone only for calling dear aunt bessy, and you and everyone in your house who might use that radio is a licensed ham, fine.

    • Ironically, 3G coverage can be *better*, or at least be made usable at greater distance with a bigger antenna. 2G-GSM has a timing-imposed hard limit of approximately 25 miles, regardless of signal strength. 3G-GSM is basically CDMA2000-1xRTT data, with wider channels (using VoIP instead of circuit-switching). That's why Australian & Canadian CDMA carriers used to be popular with remote users, and why they were able to switch to UMTS/HSPA("3G") with minimal drama... 2G-GSM was unsuitable for service in

    • Why can no one use this term correctly? Bricked means the device is dead and can't be powered up without reflashing firmware. Bricked does not mean it can't connect to a 2G network.

      • Okay, how about paper-weighted instead of bricked? I mean, you can still use an OG iphone to do some stuff, but they are best and most commonly used as paper weights now, or so I must surmise. Or would you like to argue against the relevance of paper in 2017?

        If a 2G-only smartphone can't connect to 2G anymore, it is "effectively bricked," if not outright, 100%, truly, completely and entirely bricked.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      On older times for some remote location especially when a wire could be destroyed by natural causes, like for a mountain hut, the official solution was an analogue phone patch in VHF or UHF between the phone central and the hut provided by Your Friendly Phone Company. That was a costly solution but was sometimes used. Then for a less costly solution but illegal, someone imported a cordless phone marketed for the US market but with a detachable antenna on the base station and sold it with a rooftop antenna a
  • Shutting down 2G shuts down also some of the elder/patient tracking devices that depend on 2G network (that was more energy/cost effective than 3/4G).

    • Yeah, the company that I work for made a wireless temperature monitoring solution that reported to us using the old AT&T GPRS network.

      If our customers haven't upgraded their units last year, they wouldn't have known if their freezers filled with thousands of dollars of meat would have failed.That's probably more important than those 20 or so people who were actually still using their original iPhone to make phone calls.

  • Just a thought (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonyen ( 2633919 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @09:30PM (#53686665)
    Today's iPhones might not have cellular connectivity by 2027. Just a thought to ponder...

    • Today's iPhones might not have cellular connectivity by 2027. Just a thought to ponder...

      Duh, Skynet will have us all in the dark long before then, so of course! I mean, with the implants and whatnot we'll forget cellular anyway, but you know.

  • AT&T is turning iPhones into iPods at the push of a button.

    • AT&T is turning iPhones into iPods at the push of a button.

      Now seriously, if you want an iPod, then a used iPhone from eBay is the cheapest way to go.

  • T-Mobile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @10:39PM (#53686929) Homepage

    I really fucking hope that T-Mobile doesn't follow in AT&Ts footsteps with this one. This isn't just about old phones. With my Galaxy S5, I will sometimes force it into 2G only mode? "WHY?" might you ask. Well, let me tell ya somethin. Try going to PAX Prime/East, and look at how many high-end cell phones there are in such a small space, all being constantly used by tech savy and data hungry users. 3G/4G networks become extremely unreliable at events like this. However, practically nobody is on the 2G network. Yes, it is slow. But when all you need to do is push out SMS messages to meet up with friends in person, it is seriously a life saver.

    Another reason is this. When traveling the country side, there are places that ONLY have 2G networks available, because they're literally in the middle of fucking nowhere. In rural America, 2G antennas are set to their maximum operating distance, because there are no other network towers to compete with. The "cells" become their maximum size. The furthest I've been away from a cell tower and still had 2G coverage was 20 miles up in the Rocky Mountains. These places are too difficult to run wiring to. Entire communities rely upon 2G connectivity for the most basic levels of outside communication, myself being one of them when I lived up there temporarily for a few months.

    Good ol "PROGRESS"!

    • 3G/4G networks become extremely unreliable at events like this. However, practically nobody is on the 2G network. Yes, it is slow. But when all you need to do is push out SMS messages to meet up with friends in person, it is seriously a life saver.

      Meanwhile, the remaining 2G spectrum can be re-purposed to LTE, which offers a vastly increased amount of data transferred per second per Hz, thereby increasing the amount of bandwidth available to everyone.

      An idle network with dedicated spectrum is wasted spectru

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      I really fucking hope that T-Mobile doesn't follow in AT&Ts footsteps with this one.

      Actually, they are doing the opposite.
      They're giving users with non-phone devices FREE 2G service for the next year. [t-mobile.com]

  • Almost all dual-SIM phones are also affected; i.e., they become single-SIM phones because--except in very new phones--the second SIM uses the 2G network to provide voice ad SMS services they never provided data).

  • Four years without updates? Does Apple hate us? (Score:3)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @08:35AM (#53688419)
    If Apple says the first iPhone was obsolete in 2013, why did they stop updating it four years before that? Shouldn't the last update have been in 2013 or the phone marked obsolete in 2009? Microsoft kept updating XP after announcing it was obsolete, Apple stopped updating a phone after two years.

    What does it mean? Apple left users without security updates to a device that contains the keys to a user's life for four years before informing them they needed to replace it. If you can't afford to replace your phone every other year, Apple is going to give you the finger and leave you vulnerable.

    That is some piss-poor behavior.

    • If Apple says the first iPhone was obsolete in 2013, why did they stop updating it four years before that?

      Apple pushes updates to old phones for precisely one reason, to make them slower. They don't actually give a shit about those users, they only care about users who buy new devices. That's why they always try to weasel out of fixing their hardware problems. Buy a new ATA card to get around data corruption on your B&W G3. You're holding it wrong. The cube is cracking because you're abusing it. The list goes on and on and on forever.

      When the majority of users have moved off the platform, they can stop push

  • It's not just owners of private vehicles that are affected -- the Next Bus prediction system for the San Francisco MTA is now completely broken: https://www.sfmta.com/about-sf... [sfmta.com]
  • About 20 months ago, AT&T sent me a letter offering a free Android phone to replace my otherwise-working 5 year old BlackBerry 8900 phone, so they could begin turning off 2G. They said my old phone's coverage would become progressively worse, and I needed to upgrade to a newer device for connectivity to their network. I accepted their free offer, but immediately bought a used BlackBerry Q10, which I use every day, while the LG Optimus Pro gets rarely used as a WiFi-only small tablet.

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