Virgin Media O2 Confirm UK 3G Mobile Switch-Off to Complete in Early 2026
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of broadband and mobile provider Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2), Jeanie York, has today confirmed that they’re “set to complete” their switch-off of the old legacy 3G mobile network “in the coming weeks” – largely as planned (although a few areas will still have 3G signals into “early 2026“).
The process, which was originally due to reach UK completion by the end of 2025, will free up radio spectrum so it can be used to further improve the coverage and mobile broadband speeds of their latest 4G and 5G networks. As part of this, O2 often upgrades masts in related locations ahead of the switch-off. The switch-off will also reduce the network’s costs and power consumption.
“Our 3G network has already been withdrawn across many UK locations, with the final areas set to follow shortly. You may still see a 3G signal in some places for a short period in early 2026, but the network will soon be switched off entirely, so I’d like to take this opportunity to urge anybody who is still using a 3G-only handset to please visit your local store, or call us, to upgrade as soon as possible,” said Jeanie.
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The operator is not yet switching off their 2G network, thus the few customers who had 3G before but still can’t get 4G or 5G today will still be able to make calls and send texts, although they will lose data (mobile broadband) connectivity until further upgrades are deployed. O2 did however start to shift customers away from 2G this year too, but they and other mobile operators won’t be able to completely withdraw it for several years (here).
Jeanie York said:
“We know that the majority of our customers, and those of giffgaff, Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile which use our network, already have a 4G or 5G device and don’t have to take any action as a result of 3G being withdrawn. Our number one priority, however, is supporting those customers who do need to upgrade to a compatible advice. That’s why we’ve been writing directly to all of these customers, offering heavy discounts on replacement phones and entirely free upgrades for those we know are vulnerable. Many have already taken advantage of these offers and are now benefitting from easy-to-use devices they can count on for years to come.
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When you do upgrade, you’ll be joining the millions of other O2 customers benefitting from our Mobile Transformation Plan, which will see us invest £700m into our mobile network this year alone – equivalent to £2m every day – to provide faster, more reliable services.
Whether it’s through recent network upgrades we’ve carried out at major venues like the Allianz Stadium, Wembley and Stadium of Light, upgrading coverage on major roads and motorways and in coastal areas, or deploying dozens of small cells to improve connectivity in the busiest city centres and tourist destinations, our investment in 4G and 5G networks is powering the moments that matter to our customers.
Just like 3G once did – only now faster, more reliably and more efficiently.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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> O2 did however start to shift customers away from 2G this year too
I noticed this. I use a a few 2G only devices and O2 started to kick them off from the 2G network very frequently (a few times a minute), sometimes even during the middle of the call. I left the device on for a few hours, next day it was fine.
(Since I’m sure someone would ask why I haven’t upgraded my 2G only devices: sometimes I enjoy making a call using an old Nokia 2110 or Motorola 5300. I will restore an Ericsson GH198 for the same purpose as well.)
They can’t shift 2G-only devices away from 2G (there’s nothing else it can shift to), so what you’ve experienced sounds like network issues or worse 2G coverage.
So far, this shift has been done by reducing the priority of 2G and 3G, so phones that can connect to 4G and 5G pick those instead. The threshold where a phone drops to 2G was also changed and now in most places you may stay on 4G until a point where it no longer works. But this is only for phones that support other Gs.
Anon, I know a 2G only phone can’t get anywhere. Yet, the cycle was:
Phone logs on to the network, within 10 seconds it gets kicked out, the phone logs on to the network…
I assume after I let it happen a good few hundred times their system might have noticed this is not going to work. It is not a coverage issue (on the old phone), I had nearly full bars.
The under-reported part of 2g/3g switch off is VoLTE compatibility or lack thereof preventing voice calls on older or more niche devices (e.g. BlackBerry key2 on Three is a no-go for voice calls since 3g was switched off and Three don’t care…; O2 is fine though, maybe a 2g or 3g fallback?).
What good looks like is not forcing a device replacement just because the operator does not like/wont certify specific implementations of VoLTE.
“What good looks like is not forcing a device replacement just because the operator does not like/wont certify specific implementations of VoLTE.”
This is a perennial myth. AFAIK the UK MNOs don’t impose any restrictions on the types of devices that can use VoLTE. The problem is entirely down to the fragmented nature of the Android market and the fact that Google never really took the lead of co-ordinating network settings. That is why iPhones “just work”, and why it works on various types of 4G/5G router that have a phone port.
It also doesn’t help that VoLTE was never rigidly standardised like GSM and UMTS were, so that is why there is a need for different settings in the first place. Perhaps a casualty of “agile” “MVP” style development where the data network came first and voice was considered a bit of an afterthought.
From the point of view of the customer the outcome is still the same.
Three effectively threw a previously working BlackBerry key2 off their network for voice (when they turned 3G off) because they chose to not get the BlackBerry version of VoLTE working on 4G. Support ticket ended effectively with “we don’t/won’t support that device for VoLTE”. (Presumably because they didn’t ever sell BlackBerry).
This can be a problem for visitors to the UK roaming, maybe experiencing a reduced choice of network.
And this is not the first time the industry has suffered with non-standard standards (a friend of mine who worked for a supplier of mobile services-schlumberger-used to moan that there was a Nokia way and an everyone else way)
This is the sort of thing that Of(non)Com should have taken a closer interest, in terms of consumer protection.
Any info about the date of the 2G switch off for O2 though? Because as far as I’m aware they haven’t even enabled VoLTE for PAYG SIM cards yet. Switching off 3G makes sense, nobody who actually makes substantial use of mobile data will have not already got a 4G or 5G device. Anyone with a 3G device is someone who only uses calls and texts and can drop back to 2G without issue. But keeping 2G around forever (the companies would just have to tolerate not having quite as much spectrum space for 5G expansion as they’d like) would make sense too, as the fallback standard, for calls and SMS texts only, in all those cases where standard-but-not-actually-standardised-VoLTE has bizarre compatibility problems.
I know that on Tesco Mobile (an O2 ‘Virtual provider’) they enabled VoLTE by migrating all the PAYG customers to a new tarrif with triple-the-prices, I assume something similar happened with O2 PAYG.
2G is still getting switched off, EE in May 2029, Vodafone in 2030, O2 by end of 2026? (although I can’t see it happening that fast)