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  • 3G Shutdown 2022 - a note of sanity from Texas [telecom]

    From Bill Horne@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 20 14:29:22 2022
    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)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Wed Feb 23 06:37:39 2022
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Garrett Wollman@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sat Feb 26 18:48:31 2022
    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)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John Levine@21:1/5 to It appears that Marco Moock on Sat Feb 26 12:59:40 2022
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sat Feb 26 21:58:51 2022
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to Garrett Wollman on Fri Mar 4 19:21:55 2022
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)