T-Mobile is finally shutting down its 2G network, here’s when | Infinium-tech
Believe it or not, T-Mobile is still operating its 2G network, but not for long. The magenta carrier has announced that it will finally shut it down on August 3. T-Mobile is the last US carrier to do so – AT&T was the first to retire its 2G network in 2017, and Verizon did so in 2020.
A T-Mobile spokesperson explained, “T-Mobile stuck with 2G to give customers and partners additional time to migrate legacy devices. Other carriers had already shut down their GSM networks, and T-Mobile helped fill that gap while maintaining support while customers migrated to the new technologies.”
Another reason was related to international roaming, specifically the fact that a certain percentage of customers visiting the US did not have VoLTE enabled and so they relied on circuit switched voice calls operated over 2G networks.
T-Mobile has worked with its roaming partners globally over the past two and a half years on this issue, and has maintained that they are now at a point where “no one will lose any type of service, from a voice or data perspective”.
So now is the right time to finally shut down the 2G network. T-Mobile shut down its 3G network in 2022, and after acquiring Sprint in 2020 it also shut down Sprint’s LTE network the same year.
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