- T-Mobile is finally pulling the plug on its 2G GSM network
- The carrier says it kept 2G alive to avoid stranding legacy customers, roaming users and IoT devices – but the remaining base is now “de minimis”
- The shutdown comes as T-Mobile is taking heat for migrating customers off older 3G and 4G-era rate plans and onto newer 5G plans
It’s hard to believe T-Mobile still operates a 2G GSM network, but it’s true – although not for long.
T-Mobile’s 2G GSM network will officially shut down on August 3, 2026, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce. The retirement date is published on the company’s T-Mobile Network Evolution support page.
The 2G network shutdown looms as the carrier this week started informing customers that their old 3G and 4G-era rate plans are being migrated to newer, sometimes pricier, 5G plans. They’re obviously getting plenty of backlash – as expected – on Reddit and other social media.
Why keep 2G?
T-Mobile might be considered a laggard by keeping its 2G network so long. AT&T shut down its 2G network in 2017 and Verizon shuttered its 2G network around 2020. Mobile operators typically shut down older technologies and refarm the spectrum for more modern generations.
But T-Mobile said it had good reason to hang onto the decades-old 2G network.
“T-Mobile retained GSM longer than other carriers to give customers and partners additional time to migrate legacy devices. Other carriers shut down their GSM networks earlier, and T-Mobile helped fill that gap by maintaining support while customers transitioned to newer technologies,” the spokesperson said.
In an interview, T-Mobile Chief Network Officer Ankur Kapoor echoed that sentiment, saying they didn’t want to leave a bunch of customers in the lurch.
The other thing causing T-Mobile to hang onto its 2G network longer had to do with international roaming. A certain percentage of customers coming to the United States from other countries did not have VoLTE enabled. They had data enabled for LTE, but they required circuit switched (CS) for voice calling.
T-Mobile worked with most of the carriers globally for the last two and a half years or so and now they’re at a point where “nobody would lose any kind of service, either from a voice or data perspective,” he said. “That’s why we’re shutting it down.”
The remaining 2G user base is “de minimis” and consists almost entirely of legacy IoT devices.
“Any remaining customers have been informed and provided ample time to migrate to modern network technologies,” the spokesperson said.
T-Mobile and Sprint’s 3G CDMA
T-Mobile shut down its 3G UMTS network as of July 1, 2022, but it was the June 30, 2022, shutdown of Sprint’s LTE network that caused a ruckus.
T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020 and Sprint’s old 3G CDMA network was supporting Dish Network’s Boost Mobile customers. However, T-Mobile wanted to shut it down faster than Dish expected – like by about three years, giving it little time to migrate customers to newer handsets.
Ultimately, they came to a resolution. But was it the start of Dish Network’s wireless demise? Hard to say.
Dish, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, blamed a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigation into its 5G network buildout and spectrum usage for its failure and ultimate 5G network decommissioning. Its Boost Mobile and Gen Mobile brands are not part of the bankruptcy filing.