3G phase out plan

[DrizztSama]

I work for a company which has approximately 500 IoT devices that are still using 3G EE SIMs.

I know that 3G will be phased out from the beginning of 2023. Does anybody know if all devices will drop to 2G immediately, or is going to be a controlled change? For example are we going to start seeing some drop-offs in certain areas, or is it going to be all in the same time? Is there any planned date when the 3g phase out will complete?

[bristolian]

Any 3G device should be capable of using 2G if necessary, and that network remains very much live. This should happen already anywhere that 3G isn't available.

2G should be capable of low-volume data transfer that telemetry devices generally require.

[DrizztSama]

Thank you for swift response.

I understand 2G is going to be operational and this is our fall-back option. Although as a business we would like to better understand what and when is going to happen. From what I found that's the beginning on 2023, but no precise date to start and finish the phase out. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find this information online I thought this place would be best suited.

[EssexBoyEE]

Are you certain that your 3G ioT Devices are backward compatible to 2G, the main reason 2G is still around due to the original International Roaming Agreements for a Global Service Mobile, so 2G was always a built in option for Mobile Phones. A lot of the early Data Devices of that era were either 2G (2.5G / GPRS) or 3G but were not always designed with cross compatibility across the Technlogies.

[bristolian]

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@EssexBoyEE wrote:

Are you certain that your 3G ioT Devices are backward compatible to 2G

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This thought crossed my mind, and is certainly worth checking.

As regards specific dates & plans for the 3G switchoff, nothing has been publicly announced beyond the comms currently being sent out to legacy plan users, and some news articles on various tech-reporting sites.