Mobile operator EE (BT) has announced that they will conduct an initial pilot of their 3G withdrawal scheme in the Cheshire (England) town of Warrington from the week of 17th July 2023. This will be followed by their national programme, which aims to move customers off the old data (mobile broadband) network by early 2024.
Just to recap. The UK government and all major mobile operators have agreed to phase-out existing 2G and 3G signals by 2033 (here), which will free up radio spectrum bands so that they can be used to further improve the network coverage and mobile broadband speeds of more modern 4G and 5G networks. The switch-off will also reduce the operators’ costs and power consumption.
However, 3G services will be the first to go because older 2G signals remain useful as a low-power fallback (they’ll be sticking around for a lot longer) and are still necessary for some rural areas, as well as for particular applications (e.g. many Smart Meters and other Internet of Things (IoT) / M2M services are dependent upon 2G). But most operators expect to have completely phased out 3G by the end of 2024.
According to EE, just 5% of their customers connect via 3G in Warrington, which is a similar level to the national picture. The use of 3G on the EE network has fallen to record low levels across the UK and accounts for less than 0.6% of all downloaded data and just 7% of all voice traffic – a 73% decrease since January 2020.
Customers using older 3G handsets will still be able to make calls and send texts over 2G as normal but will need to use Wi-Fi or move to a 4G or 5G device to access the internet on their mobile phone. Customers can text “Handset” (without speechmarks) to 150 to see if their mobile phone already supports 4G Calling or Wi-Fi Calling and get advice on how to upgrade, if needed.
We should point out that switching off 3G will enable the related spectrum frequency to be re-farmed for use by faster 4G and 5G networks, although this change won’t happen instantly, partly because some sites may require additional work. EE informed ISPreview that they will focus early reuse of it in areas of the greatest need (e.g. sites more congested, or areas at risk of congestion). But in most cases, EE expects that existing 4G services will be enough to support impacted customers.
EE is the second major operator, after Vodafone, to effectively begin the main phase out process of 3G services. By comparison, O2 (VMO2) has yet to reveal their plans and Three UK said they’ll be phasing out 3G service gradually over the next 2 years and switching it off by the end of 2024.
People with older phones should still be able to use 2G data. I thought that will stay for sometime until BT/EE get rid of 2G RAN.The 2G RAN is alos connected to SGSN/GGSN and hence they should still get data capability in the area. They just loose 3G data capability.
2G data is so slow on the modern internet as to be practically useless for most regular consumer tasks.
*lose
Even 3G data barely loads anything it 2023. Not sure why 2G data should be kept on. Voice is enough for 99.98% of people or some other meme statistic
4chAnon, you need some connectivity for older equipment (eg: electricity meters) that don’t support 4G/LTE. For them it doesn’t matter if it’s slow.
@4chAnon, it was not that many months ago that 3G was better than 4G around here, 4G for some reason had a load of problems, 4G is much better now, but I find it can have its moments. Thankfully, most places I go to I use Wi-fi.
I have a gate entry system intercom made by Videx which uses a SIM card for comms, it’s not 4G and very rural. I wonder if it will be able to fall back to 2G (assuming the 2G signal is as good coverage as 3G).
Turns out it’s only 2G anyway…
Disappointed they’re not repurposing on a wider scale, but would rather them get on with the switch off & start the 5G SA upgrades. Don’t want to be further behind the Yanks & Europe.
EE’s 3G network has been reduced to being a single Band 1 (2100MHz) HSPA carrier for the last few years now, so turning it off will only release a 5MHz block of paired FDD spectrum. Where EE already have 4G or 5G in 15MHz paired spectrum in Band 1, then presuming there’s enough capacity backhaul it shouldn’t be too difficult to expand this to a 20MHz block of paired spectrum I would imagine, using the current 3G spectrum. In places where they currently have only 3G on Band 1, then as the article explains this might need some sort of physical update, or at least a visit to a BTS by a site technician.
Had no idea, thanks for the info Terry. In that case, their strategy does seem sound & good that they were ahead of the curve on capacity upgrades. I’d hope the others take note.
They’re also using 2100MHz for 4G and 5G NSA in some areas. Something called DSS, I believe.
UP THE WIRE!!!!
At a major O2 MVNO, we phased out our last 3G device last week. There’s nothing holding back O2 now.
I’m guessing they’d wait 2 years before they announce anything, just to be sure. This way customers with 3G devices will be eligible for upgrades by then.
@Anon, I would be surprised if people with 3G phones are on a contract, maybe sim only contract, but I expect that will be few and far between. The couple of people I know that has a 3G only phone use PAYG and I doubt very much if they will change their phone as they only use it for calls and text, so 2G will work fine. They can’t be used for anything else anyway.
I’m starting to get concerned now that EE Still have a 3G Only MVNO – Vectone Mobile who still haven’t launched 4G or above and haven’t made any statement about their future yet.
You’d have thought there would have been something put out to their customers by now when they’re now ready to pull the plug on signal, even if it is a fairly small trial at this point. Some customers will still be affected.
As far as I can tell Vectone doesn’t have long left anyway. There’s nothing official but I think it’s just a matter of time.
You can’t find their SIMs in store, if you order via their web site it never arrives and they are closing or have closed their operations in other countries (e.g France). I wonder if existing customer SIMs still work even?
@Dave yes existing customer SIMs still work as I am one of those customers. They even did a SIM Swap for me and posted a replacement for my years old one just a month or so ago too.
I honestly hope they keep going as they’ve been fantastic to deal with. But the silence around the 3G switch off and closures in other countries isn’t a good sign as you say.
I might try getting in touch with their customer service and see if they have been given any information yet.
Well in my area EE could only provide a good 3G signal. Due to some changes at the mast, the 4G and 2G signals suddenly became a lot weaker, so 3G is (or was) the only thing that worked (before I left EE for Vodafone). There are a lot of areas that still need 3G for coverage.
Define a lot? 4G footprint vastly exceeds the 3G footprint.
A lot is about 8,000 sq miles with no 4G coverage from any operator, so you can probably double that for decent indoor coverage.
Probably double or triple again before you get coverage from 2 or 3 operators
522 has been removed and repurposed to N1 and 5G DSS treatment to 1617 & 1815 here in Whittlesey Cambridgeshire. However it’s not all gone to plan, upgrade was Monday this week and it’s quite the downgrade. Can’t even pull 10Mbps. Reported twice, EE not interested and tell me 5G isn’t active on my serving site. I just wish they’d get in the car and come and see it for themselves. How on earth these engineers can leave it like this is beyond me. It’s like the whole town is sharing an 80/20 VDSL line.
There is no DSS on 1617 or 1815
So 3 are planning to drop 3G what happens if area you live in only gets 3G?
Have asked 3 and don’t get a answer
Post code LL538DA
Just like with all of the other networks, it should be replaced with 4G and/or 5G.
One of those people that connect on 3g because the 4g signal is terrible in many places North warrington despite there being 2 major motorways in the area.
EE don’t count people that use WiFi calling – because no mobile signal.
And are not investing in 4g, not that they ever really did properly.
Not investing in 4G…
Is the SRN a myth then?
On busy seafront on a sunny day 4G and 5G on both my O2 AND Three sims struggle to load anything, congestion still a big issue at peak demands like this. Certainly can’t stream music and WhatsApp messages even take an age to send on either network. Change in settings to 3G only and everything works perfectly because noones using it. It’ll be a shame to see it go. Only way I can get a connection on days like last weekend in Brighton.