T-Mobile shuts down 2G network for good, ending a cellular era

Full text

TL;DR

T-Mobile has ended its 2G cellular operations.

The carrier had already warned legacy users well in advance of today’s termination of service.

T-Mobile ended 3G support years ago, but continued 2G for a handful of use cases.

What was your first cell phone? Every generation’s going to have a different answer to that, but for a whole lot of us, it was a 2G phone. Rising to prominence in the 1990s, this was the moment when cell phones evolved from bulky, expensive, analog monstrosities to start offering modern digital convenience. While most of us moved on to 3G, 4G, and now 5G devices , some of that legacy 2G hardware was still hanging on at T-Mobile — but today that era finally ends.

This hasn’t happened out of the blue — T-Mobile warned customers that it’s been planning to shut down 2G operations on August 3. And earlier today, the signal finally went dark.