3G networks are shutting down next year. Here's what you should know.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

What's that you say? My ankle monitor will stop working?

Everybody knows that the J&J shot gives you 5G, but nobody realizes that it also shuts down the 3G nanite you got with the polio shot.

Link to tweet

Tech in Your Life

3G networks are shutting down next year. Here’s what you should know.

If you have an old phone, an alarm system or an ankle monitor, your tech could stop working properly next year.

By Heather Kelly
Today at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Kami Griffiths has a perfectly fine phone. It’s your standard Samsung Galaxy smartphone with all the important apps, a decent camera and a screen big enough to watch videos. It’s so fine, in fact, she’s had it since 2016 without ever feeling the need to drop hundreds of dollars on an upgrade.

Come next year though, Griffiths won’t have a choice. That’s the current deadline for when the only cellular network her phone can use will shut down forever.

All of the major cellphone carriers — AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile — are planning to shut their older 3G networks in 2022. Like millions of people in the United States who use 3G phones and other 3G devices, she will have to buy a new device if she wants to text, make calls or even reach 911.

When these deadlines do roll around, Griffith’s own phone could be the least of her problems. Griffiths, who is an executive director and co-founder of Community Tech Network — a nonprofit that focuses on digital literacy in San Francisco — is worried that the group’s clients, a mix of mostly older adults and low-income residents, will find themselves either without a working phone, or could struggle to figure out how to use a new device.

{snip}

By Heather Kelly
Heather Kelly is a San Francisco-based reporter covering the ways technology affects everyday life. Twitter https://twitter.com/heatherkelly

[calimary]

1. So what's to be done?

Couldn’t access the whole thing. Away from laptop at the moment.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. My provider notified me and I got a new 4G flip phone months ago.

Is this going to be played up like the new Y2K?
My new flip phone cost far less than what most people pay per month for phone service.
Where's the struggle figuring out a new device. It's still a flip phone. It looks the same. It works the same. It's still less than $20/month for service.
That article sounds like over blown fear mongering to me. (Or more likely, some freelance writer looking for something catchy to write about.)

[Glorfindel]

3. I'm seriously considering going back to a land line

I love my little flip phone, but I don't want a smart phone. The idea of paying $800.00 for a telephone fills me with horror and disgust.

[WHITT]

4. Basic 4G Phones Are Dirt Cheap Now

For that matter, with all the FOMOs buying "5G" phones, even though there is no real 5G in the U.S. other than small specific locales, you might find somebody that would give you an old 4G phone.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Me too. But I paid under a hundred bucks for most of the Samsung...

Motorola and LG phones I've bought over the years. All worked for the stuff I do by phone.