Yunnan Telecom will gradually shut down its 3G network starting June 1

Yunnan Telecom recently issued an announcement stating that China Telecom will gradually shut down its 3G network in Yunnan starting from June 1.

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The announcement shows that in response to the country's requirements to accelerate the deployment and upgrade of 5G networks, China Telecom will accelerate the application of new networks such as NB-IoT (narrowband Internet of Things), 4G, and 5G. Yunnan Telecom will gradually shut down 3G-EVDO data services from June 1, 2020. At the same time, users who are still using 3G-EVDO data services are advised to choose 4G and 5G data services with better services and go to the telecom business hall to replace and upgrade their mobile phone cards or terminals as soon as possible.

In fact, as early as last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology publicly stated that the conditions for withdrawing 2G and 3G networks have gradually matured, and encouraged operators to actively guide users to migrate and switch networks, and use limited frequency resources and network resources in the development of 5G and 4G mobile communication networks to reduce overall costs.

China Telecom’s 2019 financial report shows that China Telecom’s 4G user penetration rate has reached 83.8%.

In order to comprehensively promote the popularization of VoLTE terminals, China Telecom stated that it will promote the launch of 100-yuan VoLTE mobile phones in 2020, and will also promote VoLTE interoperability and roaming, including interoperability between domestic operators and VoLTE international roaming. The popularization of VoLTE can accelerate the pace of CDMA network withdrawal.

At the same time, it is required that from 2020, all 5G terminals are not allowed to have CDMA frequency bands and standards, and VoLTE switches are not allowed; if CDMA frequency bands and standards have been reported, the removal schedule needs to be clearly stated, and CDMA frequency bands and standards are not allowed to appear in the final network access certificate and model approval certificate.