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AT&T Killing Its 2G Network By 2017

Posted by Soulskill on from the taking-ol'-yeller-out-back dept.

The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T has plans to shut down its 2G network by January 1, 2017. Roughly 12% of its contact wireless customers — 8.4 million people — have 2G handsets, and the company plans to gradually move them to devices running on more modern networks. "The timeline for the 2G shutdown was made in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. An AT&T spokesman said the company no longer sells 2G handsets to contract or prepaid customers. Along with phones, the company does have some other devices connected to its 2G networks, but it also expects that they will transition to more modern technology in coming years. As the carriers deal with ever increasing data usage on their networks, they also are facing a spectrum shortage to carry all the traffic. Shutting down legacy networks is one part of the plan, along with acquiring new spectrum and finding innovative ways to use unused airwaves."

5 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Just Peachy by kf4ebp2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have been using a dual sim GSM quad band for travel from the US to Germany. Looks like I'll have to carry two phones again. :(

  2. Not a good idea... by Targon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering the AT&T network still has a fair number of 2G areas, and many places have it where you get better service quality with 2G compared to 3G, I do NOT want to see 2G get shut down for quite a while. When AT&T actually updates their network, then they can shut down 2G.

    1. Re:Not a good idea... by adler187 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your comment makes no sense, since reusing those frequencies for more efficient newer technologies (4G) will improve their network.

      The reason that 2G has better signal quality than 3G in your area is that the 3G signal is overloaded. Since 3G phones will prioritize 3G signals over 2G signals (since they are more efficient and capable of more bandwidth) and most people have 3G phones, most phones are on 3G signals.

      AT&T are in a bind right now (as are most other cell providers). More people are trying to use more data over wireless all the time, which means that their cell networks are getting overcrowded and way oversold. They need to add more capacity, but that requires either more RF bandwidth (necessitating new phones/devices to use the new frequencies) or they need to replace their current services with more efficient protocols that are more spectral efficient (moving to LTE). This is part of the latter. By reusing the bandwidth that is currently in use for 2G as 4G (or shift 2G -> 3G, 3G -> 4G), they can add more capacity to their network, thus improving the network quality for everyone (except those still using 2G only devices).

  3. It would seem by jxander · · Score: 1, Insightful

    We don't like AT&T around here? Just trying to get a feel for the general zeitgeist. Is it due to their original iPhone monopoly, and thus tied to Apple-hate?

    As best I can tell, if AT&T was a good guy, the headline would read something more like "AT&T plans to upgrade all phones to higher standards." But as they're apparently bad guys, they're planning to kill off a vital service!

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    This signature is false.
  4. Re:RIP GSM by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "For various marketing reasons that don't make much objective sense, most of the world ended up standardizing on GSM long ago"

    No, it makes a lot of objective sense. The single great thing about GSM... is removable SIMs. So you don't HAVE to roam... you just pop in a new SIM.