The year 2022 will be the last in which the main telephone operators in the United States offer their customers the possibility of accessing the Internet through 3G technology. Instead, the bandwidth used for this technology will be occupied by the 4G bands and, as a priority, by the 5G technology.
As it is a finite band of frequencies, some bands of the radio spectrum must be “shared” between technologies and operators
Throughout the year operators such as AT&T, Sprint or T-MobileMe have been gradually suspending your 3G coverage so that throughout 2023 and 2024 there will no longer be any base station offering telephony service in that band.
The “hole” in the radio spectrum left by the disappeared 3G frequencies will later be reassigned so that it can be used by the more widespread networks with a greater number of users, 4G and 5G.
In fact, in the United States, it is estimated that less than 10% of mobile data connections use the 2G and 3G bandsincluding not only mobile phones but also tablets, alarm systems, medical alert devices (the “beepers”), vehicle tracking platforms and other devices.
Over time, it seems reasonable to think that something similar will happen in Europe, where mobile phone operators may also have an incentive to cancel their 3G coverage services and that bandwidth remains available to expand 5G coverage.
This high-speed broadband Internet connection technology is present in a greater portion of the territory in countries such as Spain, where there is availability for more than 80% of the population, especially due to its implementation in large cities. Even so, rural areas continue to connect using 3G technology, and the challenge is to achieve the migration of these areas to more advanced technologies.
