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Three's 3G Switch-Off

MrNoNumbers

ULTIMATE Member
With Three planning to gradually phase out 3G by the end of the year, thought this might be a good place to document how it occurs and any consequences that may arise.

Unlike the other MNOs Three still has a significant amount of 3G-only sites with no 2G to fall-back on. Personally I think it's unlikely Three will manage to upgrade >1,000 sites in the coming months, but instead opt to a form roaming arrangement with another MNO that's heavily speed restricted or calling/2G only, similar to the O2/Orange agreements of old. Either that or keep a significant number of 3G-only sites active where they provide the only service.

Any roaming arrangements would likely be heavily speed restricted or limited to 2G only. Alternatively, they could take the approach once used by Freedom Mobile Canada, meaning a seperate data allowance when connected to a 'partner' network.

As of posting, 3G is very much still alive in South Oxon:
image.png
 
similar to the O2/Orange agreements of old.
I know in the early days they had fallback to 2G Orange in certain places not sure if they used O2.
 
I know in the early days they had fallback to 2G Orange in certain places not sure if they used O2.
Was originally O2 and moved to Orange in it's later years.


Not sure whether it's still ongoing, but if so it must be extremely rare now. Last time I managed to connect to the legacy Orange network via Three was around 2019. It only worked where EE's sites are (were?) still using the Orange core and broadcasting the Orange network code (23433).

Wouldn't be surprised if the Orange sites were finally switched off when EE killed 3G but Orange 2G may well still be broadcasting somewhere.

Edit: Orange 2G from a site near Blagdon, Somerset was apparently seen on CellMapper in February this year, maybe the future's bright after all!
 
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IF the merger goes through, I'd expect they'd leverage Vodafone's network where they will be losing their 3G only masts.
 
I doubt they keep any 3G masts in service where they provide the only service as they've said by the end of 2024 they intend to turn off their 3G service so come Jan 1st 2025 it's going to be either 4G or 5G that you're going to get.

Much like EE and Vodafone have pretty much done if not already.
 
Was originally O2 and moved to Orange in it's later years.


Not sure whether it's still ongoing, but if so it must be extremely rare now. Last time I managed to connect to the legacy Orange network via Three was around 2019. It only worked where EE's sites are (were?) still using the Orange core and broadcasting the Orange network code (23433).

Wouldn't be surprised if the Orange sites were finally switched off when EE killed 3G but Orange 2G may well still be broadcasting somewhere.

Edit: Orange 2G from a site near Blagdon, Somerset was apparently seen on CellMapper in February this year, maybe the future's bright after all!
It's been a while since I've seen Orange too with EE refarming old Orange 2G into b3 and even more recently their 3G into b1.

I do remember the South West being a treasure trove for old Orange sites with a train ride between Weymouth and Bournemouth keeping me on Orange 3G most of the way, was a weird mix of being an excited nerd and annoyed since there was no throughput
 
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I have checked a number of 3G only masts around Shropshire, while normal masts have a switch off in April / May, the 3G only masts don't have a date. I pass two of the 3G on my way to work and very rarely actually switch to it these even with a weak 4G signal, so you must have to have a really bad 4G signal for them to be used tbh.
 
With Three planning to gradually phase out 3G by the end of the year, thought this might be a good place to document how it occurs and any consequences that may arise.

Unlike the other MNOs Three still has a significant amount of 3G-only sites with no 2G to fall-back on. Personally I think it's unlikely Three will manage to upgrade >1,000 sites in the coming months, but instead opt to a form roaming arrangement with another MNO that's heavily speed restricted or calling/2G only, similar to the O2/Orange agreements of old. Either that or keep a significant number of 3G-only sites active where they provide the only service.

Any roaming arrangements would likely be heavily speed restricted or limited to 2G only. Alternatively, they could take the approach once used by Freedom Mobile Canada, meaning a seperate data allowance when connected to a 'partner' network.

As of posting, 3G is very much still alive in South Oxon:
View attachment 13113
I think Three is likely to keep 3G up in 4G notspots, was going to make a thread like this earlier but other suitable threads exist

Interestingly this GL4 postcode still does not have a shutdown date despite being covered by 4G and limited 5G

1000014914.webp
 
Yeah, I think they realised this among other things.

Vodafone was/are behind with 5G outside of London, Three did a quick "spray and pray" POW rollout to fill in. Both networks have a lot of coverage to gain here.
They have blanket 5G locally and the city/town certainly isn't the biggest (around 150K for both iirc), it just depends on area like everything
 
I have checked a number of 3G only masts around Shropshire, while normal masts have a switch off in April / May, the 3G only masts don't have a date. I pass two of the 3G on my way to work and very rarely actually switch to it these even with a weak 4G signal, so you must have to have a really bad 4G signal for them to be used tbh.
Could the slow down in PoW applications now be due Three having to carry out upgrades and the cost involved.

Saying that, the majority of the MBNL sites have EE 4G on already.

I have not seen any sign from Three locally of any 3G mast upgrades taking place.
 
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3 3G is shutting down in my area 1 May, will be interesting to see if they’ll shut down the 3G only sites, they had no date on the coverage checker last time I checked.
 
I have checked a number of 3G only masts around Shropshire, while normal masts have a switch off in April / May, the 3G only masts don't have a date. I pass two of the 3G on my way to work and very rarely actually switch to it these even with a weak 4G signal, so you must have to have a really bad 4G signal for them to be used tbh.

Yeh same here. Rarely actually see 3G if I am connected to 3G it seems typical empty, with downloads even reaching 8Mbps lol. Often toggling airplane mode will connect me to a further away 4G site. See this test I ran :
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/three-mvno-related-posts.40930/post-353168

@insertfloppydiskhere
yeh about a month back, I spent a couple of hours on the Three postcode checker for the 3G switch off, and after checking postcodes across all parts of Britain what I consistently found was that locations with 3G only coverage (no overlapping 4G), did not have a date set yet, Suggesting they will remain on beyond September and possibly slipping into next year.
 
Just a thought. Once Three have switched off 3G nationwide, since they have no 2G network, they can immediately decommission all the legacy UTRAN gear (RNCs, Circuit Switched Core and IuCS, Packed Switched Core and IuPS, GTP-U tunnelling, SGSN proxy etc), although much of it is virtualised now, this will likely have huge power and operational support savings, as they will only be supporting the EPC and 5GC going forward.

It will be sad to see it all go (it still works quite well), but can see the need to move on. After all, that gumf in the network just adds latency. For anyone who wants to learn how to configure a 2G/3G SGSN Cisco have a good admin guide. The least useful thing you’ll ever learn in 2024!
Cisco SGSN Guide


Apart from this if anyone here is as geeky as me and looked at 3G WCDMA on a spectrum analyser vs LTE, 3G holds up the full bandwidth all the time, with difference coding for each UE, tying up radio resources and energy, where as LTE OFDMA is more adaptive to UE activity, using small sub channels so the UE can transmit less energy per bit with the same +23dBm limit. Wayyy more effecient .
 
Last edited:
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Found a Three Mast near me as in a 20 minute walk which according to Cellmapper has 5Mhz on Band 1 with two cells using 3G, the same mast also has on 4G the following Band 20 on 15Mhz, Band 3 on 15Mhz, Band 3 unknown, Band 1 x 2 unknown.

Am hoping once they turn off 3G locally here that the service improves drastically, we see though.
 
Found a Three Mast near me as in a 20 minute walk which according to Cellmapper has 5Mhz on Band 1 with two cells using 3G, the same mast also has on 4G the following Band 20 on 15Mhz, Band 3 on 15Mhz, Band 3 unknown, Band 1 x 2 unknown.

Am hoping once they turn off 3G locally here that the service improves drastically, we see though.
5MHz of B1 would be super unusual, care to share the eNB?
 
Just a thought. Once Three have switched off 3G nationwide, since they have no 2G network, they can immediately decommission all the legacy UTRAN gear (RNCs, Circuit Switched Core and IuCS, Packed Switched Core and IuPS, GTP-U tunnelling, SGSN proxy etc), although much of it is virtualised now, this will likely have huge power and operational support savings, as they will only be supporting the EPC and 5GC going forward.

It will be sad to see it all go (it still works quite well), but can see the need to move on. After all, that gumf in the network just adds latency. For anyone who wants to learn how to configure a 2G/3G SGSN Cisco have a good admin guide. The least useful thing you’ll ever learn in 2024!
Cisco SGSN Guide


Apart from this if anyone here is as geeky as me and looked at 3G WCDMA on a spectrum analyser vs LTE, 3G holds up the full bandwidth all the time, with difference coding for each UE, tying up radio resources and energy, where as LTE OFDMA is more adaptive to UE activity, using small sub channels so the UE can transmit less energy per bit with the same +23dBm limit. Wayyy more effecient .
I ended up getting onto a 3G only mast in a call on my drive home yesterday, then stayed on 3G for the duration of my journey home.

I don't know what it is about calling on 3G, but to me considering the band it is on, 3G calling is so much more resilient to 4G/5G/VoLTE calling, feels to me more stable... I'll miss it when it is gone, especially in rural areas.
 
I don't know what it is about calling on 3G, but to me considering the band it is on, 3G calling is so much more resilient to 4G/5G/VoLTE calling, feels to me more stable... I'll miss it when it is gone, especially in rural areas.
Agreed. I live in an area where VoLTE works really poorly to the point that it's borderline unusuable on Vodafone and Three, and better but still flawed on EE and O2.

3G Calls were rock solid and never once failed or even experienced interference for me. Call quality was still good.

I Know that VoLTE can work really well in places. But in my experience especially where I live it's just not good enough to really replace 3G but they're going ahead with it anyways.
 
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