AT&T tells consumers to change their phones since they will stop working

[Vishera]

Oh capitalism and lax regulations...

Spoiler

Good thing i don't live in America

 

[AlTech]

On 7/23/2020 at 9:24 PM, Kisai said:

snip

So HSPA+/DC HSPA+ is staying online in the US?

[DrMacintosh]

On 7/22/2020 at 11:20 AM, williamcll said:

Does this mean they are turning off 2G and 3G?

I would hope not. LTE Coverage is hardy everywhere and 3G, while slow, is sometimes the only reception you can get in a desert pass or a mountain stretch. I have Sprint (who just recently merged with T-Mobile) and when driving to Arizona to visit my Grandparents there are often large periods where 3G is the only Data I can get. If you shut off the 3G antennas and don't expand the LTE network.....you just don't have data there anymore. 

[Kisai]

30 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So HSPA+/DC HSPA+ is staying online in the US?

Nope, that's not LTE. AT&T and T-mobile both came out with "we're shutting down the old 3G network" news releases, T-Mobile's is likely because they would lose VoLTE access in areas where they use AT&T to fill in their coverage gaps, or it may simply be that T-Mobile did the first move and AT&T was more hamfisted about it.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21336397/t-mobile-require-support-volte-2021-5g-lte

Quote

Like Verizon has had VoLTE support since 2014, and chances are if you have a Verizon/Sprint-model phone that can roam to AT&T and T-mobile, it has VoLTE by default. AT&T model devices other than the iPhone might not have it.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2687492/verizon-rolls-out-volte-with-advanced-calling-1-0.html

 

Which is what has to be pointed out, that Android devices as late as the Samsung S8 may not. You know, in 2017. Apple has had VoLTE since 

 

Apple iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and later all support VoLTE if the carrier supports it, and that's 2015.

 

Someone went through the trouble to make a list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smartphones_with_HD_Voice_support

 

Looks like LG might be hard to tell if a device does or not. So you really do need to check your device, since a carrier can explicitly disable VoLTE for certain devices if those devices don't work.

[AlTech]

7 minutes ago, Kisai said:

snip

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

 

In the UK not supporting 2G is slightly controversial (See: Three being a 3G and above network without 2G whilst all others have 2G and above).

 

Anybody who has 2G rn in the UK isn't looking to lose it anytime soon and 3G is staying in the UK for at least the next 3-5 years I would say.

[TempestCatto]

I have AT&T and they tell me my BlackBerry Bold 9900 is not supported. But it actually has 4G and I'm on 4G right now even. So IDK what the hell to do. I'll be so pissed if I have to switch to a smartphone. Fuckin hate them things.

[yolosnail]

19 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

 

In the UK not supporting 2G is slightly controversial (See: Three being a 3G and above network without 2G whilst all others have 2G and above).

 

Anybody who has 2G rn in the UK isn't looking to lose it anytime soon and 3G is staying in the UK for at least the next 3-5 years I would say.

Yeah, it annoys me that Three don't have a 2G network as they're by far the cheapest PAYG network for texts and calls. Would be super handy if i could put a Three sim into the cheap GPS trackers or our home alarm which supports GSM text alerts

[atxcyclist]

46 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

 

In the UK not supporting 2G is slightly controversial (See: Three being a 3G and above network without 2G whilst all others have 2G and above).

 

Anybody who has 2G rn in the UK isn't looking to lose it anytime soon and 3G is staying in the UK for at least the next 3-5 years I would say.

I hated when the old CDMA carrier I used dropped AMPS analog service, because I could make a call basically anywhere I went here in Texas. There are many places out in the country where digital service is spotty at best, hell there are large parts of counties here that the only wireless connection you could have would be with a HAM radio, or satellite phone.

 

This is reminding me I should get my HAM license...

[mr moose]

And people think telsra is shit.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

 

In the UK not supporting 2G is slightly controversial (See: Three being a 3G and above network without 2G whilst all others have 2G and above).

 

Anybody who has 2G rn in the UK isn't looking to lose it anytime soon and 3G is staying in the UK for at least the next 3-5 years I would say.

There is a slight difference in Europe where everyone was already on the same page. So it's not like suddenly there is a need to shutdown the 2G GPRS/EDGE network in favor of the 3G UMTS/HSDPA or 4G LTE network. 

 

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/10/new-report-examines-the-uk-impact-of-switching-off-2g-mobile.html

Quote

However last year Vodafone UK signalled that their old 3G network would probably be retired – in a couple of years’ time – before 2G because the latter remains useful as a low-power fall back and is still necessary for some rural areas, as well as particular applications (here). Smart meters and other Internet of Things (IoT) / M2M services may still be dependent upon 2G, as are certain roaming facilities with overseas operators and in-vehicle calling systems.

 

I think the thing with the US/Canada is that AMPS just wastes bandwidth and 2G and 3G networks just never, ever, covered as much as the AMPS network did. So with each upgrade cycle, the coverage areas shrink, and they have to roll out smaller and smaller sectors in larger cities, where as in smaller cities, they just use larger sectors and get away with it. 

 

When I took my iPad with me on a trip from Seattle to Boston on the Empire builder, the vast majority of the time between Spokane and Chicago had 3G (I still had my Nokia N95 at this time) GSP Voice but ZERO GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA coverage. This is just one problem of the lack of wireless access outside metro areas. The LTE access is probably even worse now.

 

Even in BC, where I live, the coverage 20 minutes outside of Hope goes from LTE to nothing. Like I really would not rely on Google Maps in Canada, rely on something that has stored maps (like an in-vehicle GPS) for that. Spotify, ain't happening unless you're paying for the service that allows downloadable music.

 

Anyway, shutting down the 2G GSM networks only has an impact on devices that were designed with fixed radios. Like most home security systems still use POTS with DTMF tones for data, and cellular fallback does exist if a device can fake a dial-tone to the security box, or can use the fake "dial up" modem as a serial port on the GSM device. But almost none of these legacy devices have anyway to interface with ethernet, let alone wifi, have no encryption, and is really one of those case studies of why we shouldn't make technology so disposable. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those home security alarms, but people are then encouraged to replace them with these WiFi cameras and stuff which do require ethernet and record to cloud services, thus requiring unlimited data plans. It's just kinda stupid to shut down the 2G systems without creating some kind of bridging equipment for stuff like this. I'm sure a 2G GSM picocell with a distance of 20' could solve that problem if it's capable of spoofing the carrier it's locked to, but likely the investment in that is probably more than just replacing the security box itself. LTE modules for some newer ones are available.

 

Incidentally, Telus (the local wireless/wireline carrier) bought ADT Canada a while back and has been literately pushing this stuff to everyone, even people who live in places where you can't even install it. They also sell CANBUS-II based vehicle monitoring called Drive+ which is LTE, but they're really nothing like a real diagnostics module. Like these are literately the devices that go obsolete when the wireless carrier decides to shutdown the old networks.

 

Anyway, wireless companies don't want to pay to have seamless coverage and theoretically Starlink can solve the rest of the coverage gaps if it ever becomes a thing, thus leaving 4G/5G networks to serve high density metro areas. However I don't think it will, it might only ever be good enough for vehicle telemetry, and never good enough for VoIP.

[79wjd]

9 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

 

In the UK not supporting 2G is slightly controversial (See: Three being a 3G and above network without 2G whilst all others have 2G and above).

 

Anybody who has 2G rn in the UK isn't looking to lose it anytime soon and 3G is staying in the UK for at least the next 3-5 years I would say.

Verizon has also been planning on shutting down their older networks for years (last I checked it was scheduled for Dec 2020).

 

 It’s not really a handicap when it applies to all (relevant) carriers.

[Results45]

On 7/24/2020 at 11:02 PM, AluminiumTech said:

That's so dumb..... Why would T-Mobile and AT&T kneecap themselves like that?

.

[Roswell]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:24 PM, Kisai said:

Very wrong. T-Mobile did not have a 2G network, at least not by the marketing used in the US.

 

But this requires re-framing the entire "2G, 3G" problem.

 

Verizon (then GTE), AT&T, US Cellular, Cingular, Sprint, Nextel, Alltel and so forth's "2G" networks were all AMPS (Analog, 1G)-compatible networks. So all the predecessor networks were AT&T and whoever was "B side" spectrum. AT&T had half (A carriers), other local carriers (B carriers) had the rest (I'm recalling information that is very obsolete, so don't nitpick this.) This was all 850Mhz spectrum.

 

In 1984 AT&T was broken up, and some fun things happened. It resulted in several fragmented 2G networks.

 

D-AMPS aka PCS was all 1900Mhz spectum. This split into TDMA (AT&T, Western Wireless(T-mobile as Voicestream), Cellular One (Cingular)) and CDMA (Western Wireless(Cellular One), Verizon, Sprint, Alltel), with Nextel using an entirely different incompatible system called iDEN. All of these 2G networks were shutdown by the end of 2009.

 

For all intents, all 2G service in the United States and Canada ended in 2009. However what is called 3G in North America (GSM) is actually 2G in Europe.

 

AT&T's "3G" network was GSM-EDGE, and really it was 2.5G in internal systems. UMTS was the 3G network. So you had some phones that would say 2.5G, some would say EDGE, some would say 3G, and some would say 3.5G depending if they were using the GSM voice mode or EDGE(2.5G)/HSPDA(3.5G) data features. GPRS(2G) was supported but pretty much unused by the GSM devices as most devices at the time did not have bluetooth, and devices required tethering to use GPRS and it was slower than dialup. EDGE wasn't that much of an improvement. 

 

LTE is 4G. LTE-Advanced, is also... 4G

 

Devices that support LTE/LTE-Advanced also have GSM/UMTS/HSPDA radios in them and can not simultaneously use them. This is also why Verizon models that used the CDMA2000/1X voice mode, can not simultaneously use voice and data. Only LTE where VoLTE is supported can do that as only one radio is needed. CDMA2000/1X support requires two entire radio stacks in the chip and additional power amplifiers. As it is, most CDMA2000 cell phones do not support the AMPS mode anyway, as there hasn't been an AMPS network to connect to in 10 years.

 

So when Verizon and Sprint shut down their "2G" networks, they are really talking about their AMPS/D-PCS compatible networks, but those were running their own "3G" tech that has nothing to do with GSM 3G. Verizon is shutting down their CDMA2000 network this year, Sprint is still in the process of migrating things to T-mobile, but the same would be expected by next year.

 

This is why AT&T and T-Mobile shutting down their "legacy" networks, the 3G GSM networks is going to be a thing in the next 2 years as well. By the end of 2022 there should only be LTE/LTE-advanced networks in north America, and we will finally be back to one standard like it was in 1983.

 

T-Mobile started as GSM, so by US definitions, it started as a 3G network, under the brand Voicestream, which was later acquired by T-Mobile (Germany.) This also kinda hobbled it since GSM devices could not use the D-PCS or AMPS networks. 

 

The relationship between all the pre-4G carriers and each other is complicated as there's basically a babybell explosion in 1984, followed by multiple independant cellular networks before they all started merging with each other.

 

Verizon and AT&T are the surviving companies of the baby bells and their wireless ventures merging. 5 of the 7 became AT&T again. 1 of the 7 became Verizon, and the last one is CenturyLink which is actually a major internet backhaul carrier and didn't venture into wireless.

 

While we're at it, for completeness. 

Bell Canada hadn't been a part of the "bell system" for decades before the breakup, and thus was independant of goings on in the USA. Bell operates the Central/Atlantic Canada wireline and wireless

 

GTE (Verizon) owned investments in BCTel in Canada, prior to the breakup of the US Bell system, and references to GTE can still be found in pre-Telus documentation. BC Cellular was an early AMPS network. 

GTE created Sprint but had to operate it independently.

 

Rogers Wireless was previously known as Cantel AT&T, and previously just Cantel. AT&T owned part of Cantel at the time before Rogers bought it out. Rogers Wireless (as Cantel) operated 2G TDMA and GSM 2G networks.

 

BellSouth (BellSouth Mobility) and SBC (which had Cellular One) created Cingular One out of their previous AT&T spectrum assets, on GSM.

 

So what was sometimes called a 2G network on one carrier was a 3G network on another. Even some pre-LTE stuff that AT&T and T-Mobile engaged in called their 3.5G networks 4G. They also did this with 5G and had their arm twisted to not do it.

 

So AT&T has announced their 5G network now. Like literately today. Available August 7th.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21335456/att-5g-network-nationwide-verizon-hbomax-warner-date

 

Like literately, Verizon and AT&T were renaming their LTE service to 5G and just going "whatever"

 

Holy moly this is very wrong.

 

1. 2G in the US is absolutely digital. 
2. 2G is still in use by some carriers here and in 2009 all 4 major carriers still had it.
3. AT&T and T-Mobile 2G features edge and edge+.
4. 3G data in the US was HSPA/HSDPA (UMTS) on GSM carriers and carriers went with EV-DO on CDMA networks instead.
5. Analog networks have absolutely nothing to do with 2G here and analog shutdown dates have no relation with 2G service.
6. GPRS has nothing to do with Bluetooth tethering, that’s not why it existed, lol. It was the data implementation used before edge.
7. Devices can simultaneously use different standards. This is how simultaneous voice/data was possible early on.

There’s a lot more wrong here but I’m on mobile and I can’t be bothered to go deeper.

 

Where did you get all of this from? It’s like you’d have to intentionally try to get to this level of misinformation.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Vitamanic said:

Holy moly this is very wrong.

 

1. 2G in the US is absolutely digital. 
2. 2G is still in use by some carriers here and in 2009 all 4 major carriers still had it.
3. AT&T and T-Mobile 2G features edge and edge+.
4. 3G data in the US was HSPA/HSDPA (UMTS) on GSM carriers and carriers went with EV-DO on CDMA networks instead.
5. Analog networks have absolutely nothing to do with 2G here and analog shutdown dates have no relation with 2G service.
6. GPRS has nothing to do with Bluetooth tethering, that’s not why it existed, lol. It was the data implementation used before edge.
7. Devices can simultaneously use different standards. This is how simultaneous voice/data was possible early on.

There’s a lot more wrong here but I’m on mobile and I can’t be bothered to go deeper.

 

Where did you get all of this from? It’s like you’d have to intentionally try to get to this level of misinformation.

I worked for AT&T Wireless. The source is from the horses mouth.

 

1. 2G in the US was TDMA and CDMA. Which was called Digital PCS or D-AMPS. It was  backwards compatible with AMPS on those devices. That is not wrong.

2. 2G is not in use by any carrier in the US. 

Verizon: https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-218813/

CDMA Retirement starting 1/1/2020 . As I said, Verizon's 2G network and 3G network are one and the same, the 2G Voice network CDMA2000 is unchanged from launch, the 1X and EV-DO are the 3G tech's on Verizon.

AT&T shut down their ENTIRE 2G network in 2009. That was the TDMA network. 

https://about.att.com/innovationblog/2g_sunset

Meanwhile they brought online a 2G network, that is what was called GSM, but in AT&T's own literature they called it 2.5G. I was there. That was for AT&T to save face.

3.  Absolutely Wrong. GPRS is 2G, EDGE was 2.5G (phones display E), UMTS was 3G. HSDPA was 3.5G (or remarked as 4G, but was not 4G)

4. No, from the horses mouth, again

https://scache.vzw.com/dam/businessportal/content/assets/files/Rev_A_WP.pdf

cdmaOne - 2G

CDMA2000 - "3G"

CDMA 1xEV-DO, rev 0

CDMA 1xEV-DO, rev A

 

For all intents, Verizon literately had a 2G Voice network with a 3G data network at it's peak before switching to LTE, and thus still had to maintain that "2G"-compatible network even while rolling out LTE because that's just the penalty for picking CDMA in the first place, having to throw everything away.

https://www.business.att.com/content/dam/attbusiness/briefs/are-you-ready-for-2G-3G-sunset-white-paper.pdf

GSM, is a standard that is defined OUTSIDE the US, so whatever AT&T wants to call it depends on which network you're talking about.

AT&T operated TWO  2G networks. The Analog/TDMA network which was shut down in 2009, GONE. PERIOD. The 2G GSM network is part of the 3G network. That's what enables people from all over the world to come to the US and still use their triband/quadband devices.  AT&T rolled out the 3G UMTS network nearly simultaneously with the 2G GSM network.

 

xiii points to this article:

https://www.gsmarena.com/at_t_has_officially_shut_down_its_2g_network-blog-22811.php

 

Jump to 

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/press/att-2g-iot-lifeline

Notice they talk about 2G GSM here?

 

https://www.business.att.com/content/dam/businesscenter/pdf/legal/att-naspo-value-point-plans-page-2017-12-12.pdf

 

In case you still have your fingers in your ears:

So here, they explicitly refer to 2G GSM, EDGE and GPRS as 2G. Not 2.5G like they did in 2004.

 

https://www.dms.myflorida.com/content/download/87027/498298/version/1/file/Final+AT&T+Contract+w-All+Exhibits.pdf

Quote

Additional Definitions: The following additional terms used in this section have the meanings set forth below:

(a) 3G means 3rd Generation and refers to AT&T’s UMTS/HSPA network. (b) EDGE means Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (or GSM Evolution), which is a 2.5 Generation (2.5G) high-speed digital data service provided by cellular carriers worldwide that use the GSM technology.

(c) GPRS means General Packet Radio Service, which is a digital wireless data technology used by cellular carriers using GSM.

(d) GSM means Global System for Mobile Communication, which is a digital cellular technology standard used in the wireless transmission of voice and data. GSM is the world’s most popular wireless phone technology.

(e) HSDPA means High-Speed Downlink Packet Access. (f) HSPA means High-Speed Packet Access, which is the technology used to handle data transmissions on AT&T’s 3G network and which consists of both HSDPA (for the downlink) and HSUPA (for the uplink).

(g) HSUPA means High-Speed Uplink Packet Access.

(h) MWI means Message Waiting Indicator, which is a wireless device feature that displays the number of messages that have been received in a user’s voice mailbox. (i) SMS means Short Messaging Service, which is a wireless phone feature that allows the user to transmit and receive data messages of a limited size across two endpoints of a cellular network.

(j) UMTS means Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, which is the 3GPP version of 3G technology. UMTS carries the voice portion of a call on AT&T’s 3G network (while the HSPA component of AT&T’s 3G network handles data transmissions).

 

 

5. In the US, the AMPS, or Analog system is what D-PCS (TDMA and CDMA) ran off of. Hence their 2G networks, their real 2G networks would fall back to Analog until they were all turned off in Feb 18 2008 for AT&T

https://web.archive.org/web/20090302083929/http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/articles-resources/tdma-notification.jsp

Verizon (then GTE) was still part of AT&T when the Analog network was setup, so they had an Analog network too. The same network.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-maintains-february-18-2008-sunset-cellular-licensee-analog-service

6. What are you going on about. All but some very high end 2G TDMA cell phones data on them, it was so rare that nobody knew about the data billing system because it wasn't part of AT&T's AXYS (the TDMA billing system front end.) The 2G GSM (called "3G" in the phone IVR) system supported data, but the devices people had did not use it because they mostly had the free garbage phones that still sent ringtones via SMS. No, you needed something expensive, not a free phone to use data on these, and when you had a serial port tether (via IR, not bluetooth, because bluetooth was not a standard feature on anything in 2004. Every phone manufacturer still wanted you to buy their proprietary dongles, car kits, and whatever else.) In order use GPRS you had to know how to use the dial-up commands as though it were an attached 9600 baud modem. It was not presented as a raw TCP/IP stack, and if you could get it to work at all, you mainly could only hit things that were setup for WAP, which not much was. It sucked, nobody used it, and until "internet" APN's were available, you couldn't use "data" on the cell phone anyway. I remember it costing bloody 5 cents a kilobyte. Not megabyte, not gigabyte, kilobyte from my cell phone carrier then. It was a mistake to use data without using whatever software they gave you with the phone that used their "WAP portal" apn rather than "internet" apn, and tethering required using the internet apn. This is a long tangent but hopefully you realize I was talking about the crappiness of the devices. 

7. Verizon devices could not use the CDMA voice and data at the same time, nor could they use the LTE system and CDMA voice at the same time. That's why Verizon in 2014 rolled out VoLTE as quickly as possible because that was still a crappy experience compared to AT&T/T-Mobile which could use voice and data at the same time. 

 

[Roswell]

20 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I worked for AT&T Wireless. The source is from the horses mouth.

I worked selling phones from 3 of the 4 carriers from 2004 to 2011. Big deal.
 

You’re very wrong, sorry. Anyone that has any experience with the industry would immediately know what you wrote up was glaringly incorrect, so I’m not sure why you thought nobody would notice.

 

I’d like to hear you explanation as to how T-Mobile 2G still exists to this day if it was apparently secretly an analog service! If 2G was secretly really 3G, then what is 3G?! Haha. 
 

The rest is easily researched on Wikipedia. I’m guessing that’s where you read some of this stuff but ended up confused.

 

Weren’t you also claiming to be Canadian earlier today too? Kinda weird that you somehow Aldo worked for AT&T in the US at the same time.

[RejZoR]

I'd understand sacking 2G and moving to 3G as the bottom tech. There are people who only need a phone to talk, so a feature phone and those usually only go up to 3G at most. Just assuming everyone needs or wants a big ass brick that barely lasts through a single day on one charge is idiotic if you ask me.

 

Not to mention how much longer even smartphones last if you put them in 2G. I gave my mom my old Samsung Wave which is essentially a feature phone in a smartphone format (Gorilla Glass SuperAMOLED touch screen, aluminium unibody, decent 5Mpix autofocus shooter) and it lasts for days on one charge because she doesn't need internet or any of the 3G, 4G or 5G nonsense. Just calls, SMS and decent camera to snap something here and there and actually be able to preview that on a "big" display. I see so many not old people, just "not teens" who have all these data plans and half of the time they have no clue what their devices are doing or why they even have data plans and 4G that all just suck battery life and do nothing for them, really.

 

But hey, consumerism and capitalism, yay!

[Kisai]

53 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

I worked selling phones from 3 of the 4 carriers from 2004 to 2011. Big deal.
 

You’re very wrong, sorry. Anyone that has any experience with the industry would immediately know what you wrote up was glaringly incorrect, so I’m not sure why you thought nobody would notice.

 

I’d like to hear you explanation as to how T-Mobile 2G still exists to this day if it was apparently secretly an analog service! If 2G was secretly really 3G, then what is 3G?! Haha. 
 

The rest is easily researched on Wikipedia. I’m guessing that’s where you read some of this stuff but ended up confused.

 

Weren’t you also claiming to be Canadian earlier today too? Kinda weird that you somehow Aldo worked for AT&T in the US at the same time.

You worked for a third party store, the ones who told lies to customers so they could get out of contracts by telling them to say they joined the military. Third party stores were full of people who didn't know jack. Call center workers hate third party stores and would rather those customers go back and yell at the store because if we cancel it, they get charged the ETF and some of those third party stores had the balls to charge the customer their commission if they lost it from AT&T.

 

I worked for AT&T Wireless via an outsourced company. How the hell do you think I know about people getting fired for looking up presidents phone numbers, that was some idiot at our call center. The AT&T wireless billing systems were called AXYS (TDMA) and Siebel (3G), and everyone hated Siebel because it was a stupid ActiveX bloated mess that was like playing a game running at 5fps. Siebel was so awful that they had to make a second "web" bill payment portal for customer service just to pay bills, which pretty much everyone used instead of Siebel until they had to change someone's rate plan or refund something. Then there was also connecting to the GSM MSC web portal which you could send text messages to anyone's cell phone.

 

Go look,

https://www.cio.com/article/2439700/project-management--at-t-wireless-self-destructs.html?page=2

 

That's exactly what the billing systems were called.

 

T-mobile does not operate a 2G TDMA system, they operate a 2G GSM system, like AT&T Wireless. Go look at my previous post where T-mobile offers AT&T customers to switch to them to keep their GSM-GPRS devices working.

[Bombastinator]

This is the kind of extremely questionable behavior a carrier might normally get called out for at the national level depending on the party in power.  The current one is unlikely to do so though.  

[Roswell]

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

You worked for a third party store, the ones who told lies to customers so they could get out of contracts by telling them to say they joined the military. Third party stores were full of people who didn't know jack. Call center workers hate third party stores and would rather those customers go back and yell at the store because if we cancel it, they get charged the ETF and some of those third party stores had the balls to charge the customer their commission if they lost it from AT&T.

 

I worked for AT&T Wireless via an outsourced company. How the hell do you think I know about people getting fired for looking up presidents phone numbers, that was some idiot at our call center. The AT&T wireless billing systems were called AXYS (TDMA) and Siebel (3G), and everyone hated Siebel because it was a stupid ActiveX bloated mess that was like playing a game running at 5fps. Siebel was so awful that they had to make a second "web" bill payment portal for customer service just to pay bills, which pretty much everyone used instead of Siebel until they had to change someone's rate plan or refund something. Then there was also connecting to the GSM MSC web portal which you could send text messages to anyone's cell phone.

 

Go look,

https://www.cio.com/article/2439700/project-management--at-t-wireless-self-destructs.html?page=2

 

That's exactly what the billing systems were called.

 

T-mobile does not operate a 2G TDMA system, they operate a 2G GSM system, like AT&T Wireless. Go look at my previous post where T-mobile offers AT&T customers to switch to them to keep their GSM-GPRS devices working.

Now you’re using fallacies to dodge your initial incorrect claims. You initially stated that 2G in the US was AMPS (analog), now you’re referring to GPRS and TDMA as 2G, which is it?!

 

All of your other points are similarly contradictory from your initial post. It’s pretty clear that you’re reading Wikipedia pages and not understanding what you’re reading.

[Kisai]

29 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Now you’re using fallacies to dodge your initial incorrect claims. You initially stated that 2G in the US was AMPS (analog), now you’re referring to GPRS and TDMA as 2G, which is it?!

 

All of your other points are similarly contradictory from your initial post. It’s pretty clear that you’re reading Wikipedia pages and not understanding what you’re reading.

You could try reading what I post instead of making things up I didn’t say. Either go back and actually read it or continue being a forum troll.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This is the kind of extremely questionable behavior a carrier might normally get called out for at the national level depending on the party in power.  The current one is unlikely to do so though.  

How is it any different when TMobile killed off Metro PCS’s network and required those customers to buy new phones?

 

Upgrades happen. People just have to deal with it. It’s like when Comcast kicked Docsis 2.0 modems off it’s network. People cried about that too. But in the end the Network is owned by Comcast and it’s their choice on what equipment they allow. AT&T  is no different. 

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

How is it any different when TMobile killed off Metro PCS’s network and required those customers to buy new phones?

 

Upgrades happen. People just have to deal with it. It’s like when Comcast kicked Docsis 2.0 modems off it’s network. People cried about that too. But in the end the Network is owned by Comcast and it’s their choice on what equipment they allow. AT&T  is no different. 

I’m not so familiar with the event you describe.  If they were both highly questionable behaviors likely not much for purposes of my comment.  I don’t know when the event you mentioned happened.  As far as this one goes the timing seems imperfect for the action.  What I was alluding to I think is that it may be that at&t feels that the environment for doing such things may change to one less friendly to such things, so it is rushing the action.  Att is an old business.  For many years it has been traditional for businesses to hold consumer unfriendly or abusive actions for times when they feel they are more likely to get away with them without impediment.

[Boomwebsearch]

On 7/23/2020 at 12:25 PM, Donut417 said:

I think most carriers killed 2G. But 3G is probably on the chopping block as well. They will need the bands to do 5G and expand 4G. 

 

For unlimited plans offered by many cellular carriers, once you get past around 20 to 35 GB of data usage, you will get put on 2G or 3G speeds for the rest of your billing cycle, so I don't think that they will be completely removed (lower frequencies such as upto 1.9GHz or 2.2GHz may allow for better range with fewer towers placed farther away), 5G is currently only available in certain areas and in most places the best you are going to get is 4G LTE.

[Kisai]

53 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

 

For unlimited plans offered by many cellular carriers, once you get past around 20 to 35 GB of data usage, you will get put on 2G or 3G speeds for the rest of your billing cycle, so I don't think that they will be completely removed (lower frequencies such as upto 1.9GHz or 2.2GHz may allow for better range with fewer towers placed farther away), 5G is currently only available in certain areas and in most places the best you are going to get is 4G LTE.

Being capped to 2G speeds (100kbps or less) or 3G speeds 300kbps doesn’t mean you get the 42mbps of DC-HSDPA. It just means they cap the speed between the MSC and the phone at the MSC.

 

WCDMA is basically everyone speaking at the same time but in different languages. So it doesn’t have a way to throttle bandwidth like TDMA and GSM did( which both used time division.) Rather as more people speak, the harder it is to hear. Try using your cell phone in a busy convention center, chances are it will not work very much or at all. LTE-FDD carries on the way WCDMA works but requires paired frequency bands. So the only way a carrier can actually throttle HSDPA or LTE is by QoS’ing the VoLTE traffic at the MSC and then throttling down the individual subscribers data use on the core network. Otherwise everyone on that cell site’s MSC would suffer.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Boomwebsearch said:

(lower frequencies such as upto 1.9GHz or 2.2GHz may allow for better range with fewer towers placed farther away),

I beg to differ, those are more like Mid band. I would consider anything under 1Ghz to be lower. The higher and mid range bands will be used for 5G as well. T Mobile already stated this fact, which is why they bought Sprint. 

 

2 hours ago, Boomwebsearch said:

you will get put on 2G or 3G speeds for the rest of your billing cycle

Why? They can just throttle you on 4 and 5G service. Its not magic, ISP's throttle users all the time, they don't need to drop you on to a lower network to do it.