While sunsets are expected to occur sooner than then, experience shows operators will still face challenges in migrating some customers away from older technologies
Government and industry have agreed on a last-resort deadline: The UK has a sunset date for its 2G and 3G networks. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) issued a joint statement with mobile operators, confirming that public 2G and 3G networks will operate at the latest until 2033. However, the date represents more of a last-resort deadline rather than an actual end-of-life date for 2G and 3G. Operators could phase-out the respective networks ahead of that date, and are probably likely to as they deploy new sites and technologies.
The phase-out will facilitate OpenRAN deployments and more 5G: Agreeing on a phase-out of 2G and 3G is part of a series of measures to implement the Government’s Supply Chain Diversification Strategy, through which operators will replace high-risk vendors with alternatives, including OpenRAN solutions. Operators are committing to carry 35% of mobile traffic over OpenRAN by 2030, but will need to sunset 2G and 3G in order to adopt OpenRAN on a larger scale, since OpenRAN generally does not support obsolete technologies. This will also free up spectrum for 5G.
2033 would be a very late phase-out: While UK operators are expected to phase out 2G and 3G earlier than 2033, a complete phase-out could still be a long way away. 3G is likely to be phased out earlier, with EE having confirmed that it will do so by the end of 2022. Vodafone intends to sunset 3G over the next few years, but has not yet set a firm date. On 2G, all UK operators have been silent so far. As we recently noted, operators in Australia, Canada, Japan, US, and South Korea have been significantly quicker in phasing out 2G. However, the UK is in a similar situation as the rest of Europe, where very few operators have phased out 3G, and 2G networks are still operational with some phase-outs scheduled for 2025.
Ensuring a smooth transition will have its challenges: A significant proportion of mobile connections still rely on 2G and 3G technologies in the UK. According to Ofcom, 4G and 5G connections made up 76.8% of the market in 2020, meaning that more than 23% are still using older technologies. Information campaigns could be needed to speed up consumers’ migration, and operators will have to work with the IoT industry to avoid disruptions such as those that are emerging in the US ahead of AT&T’s phase out of 3G.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-boost-uk-telecoms-security
