Att is supposedly refarming its spectrum like what Sprint is doing to Nextel/Boost iden. They aren't directly killing it outright so much as slowly choking it to death. Their move is to degrade service in areas so much that people on 2g will WANT an upgrade and then bam, here comes 3/4g and 2gsm goes away. I think this will have an effect on international travelers the most who rely on quadband gsm for intl compatibility. Supposedly the 1900mhz from Att will be probably the first to go and see the most depreciation.
I wish that they wouldn't do this but in the fast paced world of mobile technology, nothing's forever.
I just hope it takes as long as possible to do this and by that time we'll have resettled into another brave new world.
I don't think they are doing this to cripple prepaid so much as to keep up with Verizon and LTE. This is one of the negative side effects of the failed Tmobile merger attempt.
My biggest view is how will it affect byod for gsm? That's my question. NY Metro is a big area to start with. My dinky market will probably have iden for longer then the rest of the country, same with gsm but the sheer potential of near universal byod will be reduced for a large number of handsets potentially.
Though in this world of smartphones, 3g is rapidly a bottomline necessity for many such device users.
If most gsm devices had most the the necessary 3g channels including Tmo, Att and international it wouldn't be such an issue for that group of devices but it isn't like that at this time.
Also, Tmobile itself is getting ready to kill 2g gsm too, or at least vastly reduce it.
I didn't think world phones, at least not the smart ones, will choke without 2G data. But comparing the cheap phones that all the little prepaid divisions sell, well, that's a little more worrying. I know from experience old people (>40, sorry) despise changing anything that already works, especially if it costs money. And where I work, people look at me with suspicion when I tell them an old CDMA phone is an "expensive" $10.
At least prepaid isn't dying yet... America Movil owns the aforementioned TrAinee TracFone, Net10, and Straighttalk. Their CEO is the richest man in the world. I don't think killing 2G will kill them.
No idea. I'd say quite a ways off, probably late 2013 to early 2014 as even 2g iden will be still around in at least early 2013.
The big issue is WILL Verizon and Att consent to allowing interoperability between their LTE channels. With Tmobile and Sprint planning to join the LTE party as latecomers, there is unprecedented potential here, BUT unless the FCC swings a stick, might not happen. Tmo is planning to pressure Verizon and Att into allowing interoperability. I say make it so. We'll see. Att is supposedly planning to keep gsm till around the end of this decade but things can change...
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Originally Posted by fonezfonz
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