Will it be long before US telecom giant AT&T shuts down its 2G network in China?

As 4G networks become more popular, many operators around the world are preparing to shut down their old 2G networks. Recently, the US telecom giant AT&T announced that it has shut down its 2G network since January 1 this year.

According to DigitalTrends and other US technology media, AT&T Chief Strategy Officer and Group President John Donovan said in an official article: "In order to support the rapid growth of mobile Internet use and free up frequency resources for newer technologies, we have stopped 2G network services on January 1."

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AT&T said it will use the freed-up frequency resources for 5G and 4G networks, and will adjust and optimize the frequency of existing 4G networks in the coming months.

In addition, AT&T will also use frequency resources to strengthen its HSPA-based 3G network.

It is well known that around the world, with the popularization of smart phones and the operation of 4G networks, the data consumption of mobile phone users has increased significantly. For example, the data consumption of Chinese mobile phone users is currently growing at a doubling rate.

AT&T said data traffic on its communications network has grown more than 2,500 times since 2007.

The company's closure of the 2G network will inevitably affect some old users. According to statistics, as of the third quarter of last year, the company had a total of 4 million 2G users, and the company has upgraded more than 2 million users to the network.

The Verge, an American technology news website, pointed out that the shutdown of the 2G network would prevent the first batch of iPhones sold by Apple that year from connecting to the Internet.

AT&T reportedly initially planned to shut down its 2G network at the end of 2019, but the company changed its mind due to the popularity of VoLTE voice communication technology.

In the 2G network era, most mobile phones were feature phones, and their main services were voice calls and text messages. Although some smart phones appeared, the Internet access speed was very slow, and the mobile Internet era had not yet arrived. With the emergence of 3G networks, mobile Internet applications began to gradually become popular. At the same time, Apple's reinvention of the smart phone and the successive price cuts by smart phone manufacturers promoted the popularization of mobile Internet, making the frequency resources of mobile operators increasingly tight.

In the middle of last year, Verizon, one of the two major telecom giants in the United States, also announced that it would shut down its 2G network in 2020. The company uses CDMA technology. However, after AT&T shut down its network ahead of schedule, it is still unknown whether this competitor will follow suit.

In December last year, Telstra also announced it had shut down its aging 2G network, which it launched in 1994.

In addition, Singapore has stipulated that the sale of 2G mobile phones and other communication equipment will be banned from 2017, and starting from April this year, the country's mobile operators will shut down 2G networks.

So far, China's three major mobile operators, China Telecom (Weibo), China Unicom (Weibo), and China Mobile (Weibo), have not announced a timetable for shutting down 2G networks. In the domestic market, a large number of 2G feature phones (commonly known as senior phones and student phones) can still be seen on sale.