T-Mobile Wants to Turn Off 2G and 3G—But Not Quite Yet

BARCELONA—In a 5G world, 4G still has a identify. But 2G and 3G might not. At an Ericsson press conference this morning at Mobile World Congress, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray talked nearly perhaps turning off the carrier's 3G network in 2022.

MWC Bug Art "By 2022, we'd dearest to have GSM turned downward, if not before," he said. "What do we practise start, 3G or 2G? That's primarily driven past what you can do on voice."

With 70 perecent of T-Mobile'due south phone calls now on phonation-over-LTE (VoLTE), and all of T-Mobile's recent phones supporting VoLTE, it's all about peeling longer-term subscribers off of older phones, Ray said.

"With handset refresh cycles, you lot await at 2022, and I think it's an opportunity to move to an all-LTE network," he said.

Wait—Not Then Fast

AT&T has already turned off its 2G network. But turning off 3G may reap more benefits. Ray said that T-Mobile is already running its 2G in the tiny edges of its LTE bands, mostly for auto-to-machine devices similar vending machines and parking meters. 3G uses spectrum that could actually be repurposed for LTE.

"We establish a very cost-effective and low-taxing spectrum methodology to run GSM for more time," he said. Keeping T-Mobile's 2G online helped the carrier win over machine-to-car customers from "a competitor," according to Ray, which almost certainly means AT&T.

Notice that you don't hear Ray talking most 2G and 3G phone calls. That's because he'southward been intent on getting those phone users over to 4G LTE handsets as soon as possible.

"I want to get that last 30 percent [of phone calls to VoLTE]," he said.