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Cellphones Network Wireless Networking

T-Mobile Shutting Down 2G Network Beginning Next Month (tmo.report) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-upgrade dept.
"T-Mobile will be shutting down their 2G network beginning next month, making older phones obsolete," writes Slashdot reader Dustin Destree. From the Mobile Report: Most phones today use 4G and 5G, and T-Mobile's 2G service somehow managed to outlive the company's 3G service, which was killed off in 2022. Nonetheless, after postponing a previous shutdown date of April 2nd, we seem to finally have a date for T-Mobile sunsetting its 2G service, and it's pretty soon. T-Mobile has added a date for when its 2G service's capacity and coverage is "expected to change." The service should begin shutdown on September 1st, 2024. The date was quietly added without a major announcement, and it was added sometime after August 5th, as a former Google cache of the page (which has now also been updated) previously showed.
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T-Mobile Shutting Down 2G Network Beginning Next Month More

T-Mobile Shutting Down 2G Network Beginning Next Month

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  • Not for phones (Score:5, Informative)

    by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2024 @07:59PM (#64703782) Homepage

    It is not phones keeping this alive, it is IOT devices all over doing telemetry. Like vending machines, weather stations, alarm systems, etc. Every one of those has to have the cellular radio replaced.

    • Re:Not for phones (Score:4, Interesting)

      by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2024 @09:31PM (#64703954)
      Some of the owners of some of the more industrial-control oriented devices (think a small town's sewage pump monitoring system) do not know how their data collection systems work. An engineering firm set this up for them years ago. The data shows up in the application, the support contract has changed hands over the years and they have no idea that the data is coming over 2G. But they are about to find out.

      • They pay for the service so they would have gotten notice.

        • "They pay for the service so they would have gotten notice."

          "Hey, Jim, just got this mail from T-Mobile that they're shutting down 2G, whatever that is. We got anything that's using it?"
          "Nothing I know about."
          "Guess I can bin it, then."

        • That notice went to the same address that the bills go to -- which is processed by the accounts payable bureaucracy. If it is not a bill, it goes into the trash. If it is a bill, the bill origin is on the list of payable organizations and it is within the allowed range then it is payed. Thinking is highly discouraged in accounts payable.

    • Every one of those has to have the cellular radio replaced.

      The vast majority of these have already been done. Anything manufactured in the past 20 years isn't using 2G anymore. Anything older than that has definitely been subject to a maintenance replacement.

      This will still affect some people, but the scope of it will be quite small simply due to obsolescence alone.

      • 2G systems were still being deployed 3-5 years ago. I had an alarm system installed ~10 years ago that was on AT&T's 2G network that expired during COVID. My understanding is alarm companies were still installing new AT&T 2G based systems within 3 years of the EOL of the technology. I don't know about T-Mobile, but from what I heard from the alarm guys, AT&T sales didn't tell them that the service that they were incrementally buying with each system sold had a short shelf life. Due to supply

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      The 3g cut off in 2022 seems to have gone fine (even if my at the time still relatively new car lost its connected features) I'm not so worried.

  • It really is about time because that spectrum can now be re-farmed to support 5G technology and improve speeds and capacity/

    • It doesn't actually do much from a spectrum perspective. GSM uses really narrow carriers that T-Mobile has wedged into the guard bands between the wider LTE and 5G-NR carriers. So shutting it down won't actually recover much spectrum, but rather, will eliminate maintenance on older equipment.

      • How much of the 2G stuff still runs on old, dedicated hardware (vs. just being another feature on 4G/5G equipment)? i.e. Is this a software-only change or will they actually be able to power down a lot of hardware?

  • This also means a lot of the old "feature" phones that used to work on T-Mobile USA's network will no longer function correctly. It will force a lot of users to upgrade to current technology "feature" phones that support Voice over LTE (VoLTE).

  • Oh, great (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2024 @10:44PM (#64704058)

    NOW what am I gonna do with that storage locker full of iPhone 1s?

  • Aus is shutting down 3G. (Score:3)

    by upuv ( 1201447 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2024 @10:56PM (#64704088) Journal

    I'm rather shocked that US still even has 2G. 2G has been long gone from Australia for years now. 2016 I think actually.

    3G is about to be shut off pending a few last second extensions. But was due to be completely off this month.

    A few reasons for it. Aus doesn't have the same density of subscribers as US. Also most IoT here is much more up to date compared to the US. That said Aus will still have IoT issues with a lot of things when 3G is killed.

    But the most important thing is the spectrum is reclaimed and re-used by things like 5G for example.

    Aus however is likely to be one of the first countries however to rollout starlink mini/micro IoT connections for systems off in the outback. Things like rail monitoring, Cattle stations, weather stations, water management etc. I know for a fact it's being looked at seriously by a few industries.

    Odds are the wireless network will look very much like 6G and starlink inside of 10 years in Aus.

    I'm a bit surprised 2G is still even on in the US. Especially when in the US so much money could be made from that spectrum.

    • 3G was shut off in the US in 2022.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjoeg ( 629707 )
      But Australia sure is shutting it down with a bang (or disregard aka other persons problem)
      https://www.news.com.au/techno... [news.com.au]
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]

      • But Australia sure is shutting it down with a bang (or disregard aka other persons problem)

        https://www.news.com.au/techno... [news.com.au]

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]

        Yep, and they have to keep postponing the shutdown, because it's going to be such a shambles when they do turn it off: https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]

        Personally, I think the networks should be held liable for all the perfectly-functional hardware that is being turned into e-waste at the flick of a switch.

        I am also pissed off that Telstra had the gall to increase their prices last month. Yep, more money for less service. I'm pissed off, but not surprised.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > I'm rather shocked that US still even has 2G

      In most areas, we don't. Where I live, the 2G networks were shut down a good while ago, and everyone remembers it because all cellphone customers who still had 2G phones were forced to buy newer ones at their own expense; additionally, the sales people systematically lied to (mostly elderly) customers who specifically wanted a flip phone, and told them that no one manufactured flip phones supporting the newer networks (3G and later), which was absolutely not
  • Mild sad because that thing has been a tank, I used it from 2009 to 2018 and it still Just Works.

    • I bought this phone the day it was released in 2008. A few years later, it had become quite slow with then current web sites.
      How did you keep it going that long ? Did you flash an alternate distribution that had security updates still ?

      • some version of cyanogenmod based on the android 2.x kernel that I forgot where I got it, probably xda. It still loads wikipedia, slashdot and fark

  • In the UK, iinm, most smart meters use 2g sim cards. This makes shutting it down problematic.

    I guess, I'm wondering if there are other things than just phones on these 2g networks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      In the UK, iinm, most smart meters use 2g sim cards. This makes shutting it down problematic.

      I guess, I'm wondering if there are other things than just phones on these 2g networks.

      Those would have to be really old smart meter networks deployed really early on. Most of those meters have expired calibration and utilities have replaced them with more modern smart meter networks.

      Most smart meter networks today rely on the 900MHz ISM band.

      That doesn't mean we don't use the cellular networks, just it's generally

  • What a lovely reurring revenue stream. (Score:3)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Wednesday August 14, 2024 @01:31AM (#64704244)

    This isn't the last time and the next pool of unsupported hardware will be even more enormous.

    • This isn't the last time and the next pool of unsupported hardware will be even more enormous.

      I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that you don't understand obsolesce is a thing and no hardware will last forever? The vast majority of equipment is not on 2G anymore for matters completely unrelated to the cellular system in the slightest. You just don't "fix" problems by replacing it like for like with 20 year old tech.

      Other countries shut down 2G ages ago and nothing happened, because it turned out no one used it anymore. Electronics break and get upgraded. No need to invent a

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