Here's a site at the Texas Technology Access Program, which gives a
more clear explanaiton of 3G's multiple sunset dates. The site
includes multiple pointers to resources and information, including
possible work-arounds for those with 3G devices that have WiFi or
other "bypass" capability.

Kudos to the Lone Star State!

https://ttap.disabilitystudies.utexas.edu/3g-shutdown-2022

--
(Please remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)

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Am Sonntag, 20. Februar 2022, um 14:29:22 Uhr schrieb Bill Horne:

Here's a site at the Texas Technology Access Program, which gives a
more clear explanaiton of 3G's multiple sunset dates. The site
includes multiple pointers to resources and information, including
possible work-arounds for those with 3G devices that have WiFi or
other "bypass" capability.

Do they still operate 2G in the US?
In Germany they switched off 3G, but 2G is still available, so most old
mobile phone still work, some UMTS USB modems or PCMCIA cards do not
because the don't support 2G.

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In article <20220223063739.566b1fc6.mo01@posteo.de>,
Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:

Am Sonntag, 20. Februar 2022, um 14:29:22 Uhr schrieb Bill Horne:

Here's a site at the Texas Technology Access Program, which gives a
more clear explanaiton of 3G's multiple sunset dates. The site
includes multiple pointers to resources and information, including
possible work-arounds for those with 3G devices that have WiFi or
other "bypass" capability.

Do they still operate 2G in the US?

No. These were largely the same technologies in the same licensed
frequencies -- e.g., for Verizon, "2G" (an industry designation never
used in marketing) was IS-95 CDMA, and "3G" (which was used in
marketing) was IS-2000 CDMA. For the various ancestors of AT&T, "2G"
was largely IS-136 TDMA (so-called "Digital AMPS"), which was phased
out in favor of GSM when "3G" was introduced rather than developing
yet another protocol for mobile high-speed data. The Telecom Digest
Archives have a lot of posts about this from the time it was
happening (about 15 years ago if I recall correctly).

What is happening now is that the legacy GSM and cdma2000 networks are
being turned down so that spectrum can be converted to LTE use. All
of the mobile networks decided to build LTE as their 4G product, but
they had to acquire new spectrum for this. The number (and revenue)
of 3G-only customers is now small enough that the carriers have
decided that it's cheaper to drop those legacy customers than it is to
acquire additional spectrum to expand their LTE networks.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

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It appears that Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> said:

Do they still operate 2G in the US?

AT&T turned off 2G in 2017. The other carriers plan to turn it
off this year about the same time as they turn off 3G. They are
desperate to free up bandwidth for 5G.

Here's an odd turnoff story: I have an unlocked Samsung S9 phone I
have been using with an AT&T Tracfone SIM. Tracfone was recently sold
to Verizon and they are migrating all of their users to VZ SIMs and
all of their voice traffic to VoLTE. They sent many warnings that my
AT&T SIM would stop working when they turned off 3G, even though it's
a 4G phone. They also insisted that my phone wouldn't work on their
Verizon 4G network because it doesn't support VoLTE.

Whaddaya know, they were right, it didn't work with their VZ SIM. So I
switched to Ting, another VZ MVNO, and it works fine and says VoLTE is
turned on. I am baffled -- Tracfone has no reason to cripple my phone
but for some reason their SIM did just that. The phone was originally
from Comcast, another VZ MVNO, and I wonder if VZ has some rule about
not poaching their resellers' phones.

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On 2/23/2022 0:37, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sonntag, 20. Februar 2022, um 14:29:22 Uhr schrieb Bill Horne:

Here's a site at the Texas Technology Access Program, which gives a
more clear explanaiton of 3G's multiple sunset dates. The site
includes multiple pointers to resources and information, including
possible work-arounds for those with 3G devices that have WiFi or
other "bypass" capability.

Do they still operate 2G in the US?
In Germany they switched off 3G, but 2G is still available, so most old mobile phone still work, some UMTS USB modems or PCMCIA cards do not
because the don't support 2G.

I do not think that Verizon has shut down their 2G/CDMA yet, but I am
not sure. I believe the T-Mobile already announced Sprint 2/3G discontinuation.

I can verify that T-Mobile is still operating the 2G spectrum, but they
have cut it down to the point that it only works on the fringe. I still
have a circa 2001 Nokia 3395 mobile phone, 2G only, and I confirmed the
other day that it still works when I put my T-Mobile SIM card into it,
although coverage is very spotty.

T-Mobile announced that they will shut 2G down December of 2022, but
they have extended it to an "uncertain" date now; lots of M2M/IoT
devices still run on that network, and many came over from AT&T a few
years ago when AT&T shut down their 2G GSM network.

T-Mobile 3G is slated to go down this summer. A fried of mine has an
old 3G only Symbian smart phone, and is holding out until service goes
out. It should work on 2G then, but it would not be fun to use mobile
data at that bandwidth.

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On 2/26/2022 13:48, Garrett Wollman wrote:

In article<20220223063739.566b1fc6.mo01@posteo.de>,
Marco Moock<mo01@posteo.de> wrote:

Am Sonntag, 20. Februar 2022, um 14:29:22 Uhr schrieb Bill Horne:

Here's a site at the Texas Technology Access Program, which gives a
more clear explanaiton of 3G's multiple sunset dates. The site
includes multiple pointers to resources and information, including
possible work-arounds for those with 3G devices that have WiFi or
other "bypass" capability.

Do they still operate 2G in the US?

No...

What is happening now is that the legacy GSM and cdma2000 networks are
being turned down so that spectrum can be converted to LTE use. All
of the mobile networks decided to build LTE as their 4G product, but
they had to acquire new spectrum for this. The number (and revenue)
of 3G-only customers is now small enough that the carriers have
decided that it's cheaper to drop those legacy customers than it is to acquire additional spectrum to expand their LTE networks.

-GAWollman

The 3G spectrum that GSM carriers are turning down is useful for LTE,
but 2G GSM service operates on the fringe frequencies of 4G LTE, and
would provide almost no additional bandwidth. T-Mobile plans to keep
their 2G network active for some time to support some legacy MTM and IoT devices/customers.

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/t-mobile-network-evolution

Excerpt from the above T-Mobile support page:

"We've also shared that we plan to retire T-Mobile's older GSM 2G
network as well, but no date has been set. We will update this page
with any additional information in the future."

The T-Mobile 2G shut off date is now "to be determined"... it was
formerly December 2022.

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