mrcamp

And the same AT&T is still selling non-3G phones. They have plenty listed on their website. At least about 1/4 of the phones on their prepaid page do NOT have 3G.

james318

AT&T may stop selling Non-3G devices, but there is no way they aren't going to support 2G anymore.

Yaatri

AT&T uses 850 (band V) and 1900 (band II) MHz bands for its 3G services. Both the bands are individually used for downlink as well as uplink. In other words, in some areas the network uses 850 MHz for two way traffic, while in others, it uses 1900 MHz.

T-mobile uses band IV which uses 1700 MHz for uplink and 2100 MHz for downlink. The portion of 2100 band used by T-mobile is slightly different from the portion used by IMT (band I) in the 2100 MHz, which uses 1900 MHz for uplink.

That's why I tend to believe that T-mobile, phones would work in 3G in countries that use IMT despite some people reporting that their Tmobile phone works in 3G in IMT countries, unless their phone is dual band in 3G.

AbeWalters

Wikipedia does not specify what percentage of people are on 2G vs. 2.5G vs 2.75G. Can AT&T stop supporting 2G while continuing to still support 2.5G and 2.75G without affecting the color of their coverage maps drastically?

I am going to go into my local store tomorrow and see if I can get some confirmation on this news. I asked the store rep when they would stop supporting 2G about a month ago and he made a call but gave some BS answer.

It seems reasonable to me that with the massive investments in 3G and 4G something has to give. Wikipedia was very scarce on the history of 1G. It tells you all about the beginning and the technology but not the timeline of becoming obsolete. If memory serves me right it was about two and half decades for 1G and 2G has been around for 2 decades. Isn't technology accelerating at a faster pace. Why is everyone so skeptical that GSM about to die. I really hope I can get at least two years out of my new $20 phone so I hope the rep is full of it.

notsosmart

You're going to get some seriously blank stares.

gfunkdave

You're tying yourself into knots about this. I've never heard of 2.75G (though that doesn't mean anything - you could fill libraries with what I haven't heard). But as I recall, 2G is the standard GSM/GPRS and 2.5 is GSM/EDGE. Same air interface, same old GSM. They're all the same.

^

weekilter

"Going into a store" to confirm is one of the silliest things I've heard of late. Stores know less about what the company is doing than pretty much anyone else. You might as well ask the guy who sells phones at the Rite Aid what his expert opinion is. Why you think some hourly worker in the AT&T store knows more about the mobile technology field than people who make their living knowing about it puzzles me. People in the AT&T store are there to sell phones, accessories and calling plans. They're not there to give prognostications on whether the current network will be shut down.

nmenaker

They MIGHT be actually going to stop the original 4K blue cards, needing either an upgraded orange card. I've heard similar in the past, but it was never a requirement.

Agreed, there is no way they are turning off 2G data services in the USA, it is still very pervasive and a lot of people still have those devices, and many legacy devices are still using the 2g connectivity only. Some cars, (not onstar of course, which is a mix of TDMA and CDMA)

Yaatri

The rep probably said that they would not be supporting 2G phones, i.e. if you had to replace your 2G phone for any reason, you would have to replace it with a 3G phone.
As someone pointed out, 2G is the easy part of the integration, the real trouble would be with the disparate 3G networks of AT&T and T-mobile. There is nothing in common between the two 3G networks.

RChavez

It's interesting as a store rep at the Rockefeller Center AT&T store told me the exact same thing that they were shutting down the EDGE network over the summer.

She also said that customers who were still on a 1G/2G iPhone would have gotten a letter/card from AT&T with an incentive to upgrade to a 3G model.

Not saying that she was accurate or had all of her facts straight, but she was quite authoritative about it and combined with this thread, it makes me wonder where this might be coming from.

The push to get people onto 3G phones seems the most plausible, IMHO.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Interesting.

In the scramble for spectrum, eliminating the 2G stuff would free up additional room - and provide a means to get folks on new contracts, expensive phones, and high termination fees.

sggolf

AT&T is forcing their "blue" customers to new plan...turning off SMS texting at end of April and actual phone service using blue sim extended from April to August.

Come in get a new free phone...but need to migrate to new plan...

holtju2

Good luck ATT if they ever try to do that. More than half of the time my ATT phone is on the Edge network instead of 3G.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Which may well be at higher price with less services.....

Hopefully it won't force them into a 2 year plan.

soitgoes

No contract extension is required, and there is a choice of a few free phones. The plans, though, are more expensive for many, and free incoming text messages are gone.