Will your cellphone work after February 2022?

[marlin39a]

I was just notified by my carrier, Puretalk, that after 2/2022, all networks will be shutting off 3G networks, and going 5G. I supplied them with my phone number, and was informed my IPhone SE will not be affected. If you are running older phones, you will need to upgrade, or your phone will not work. Should be hearing from your providers shortly.

[cwtebay]

I would doubt that all will be affected that way. 5G is a long ways from being available in a large chunk of the parts of the world I have visited lately. I wonder if it's an effort to make users update phones that are no longer easily serviceable?

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[gwpercle]

Y2K all over again ?

Let's see what happened on that day ...don't you remember ... nothing !

[Gator 45/70]

I'd kinda like not having this electronic tracking Device or at least a signal shield.

[Shawlerbrook]

Already got notified that my dad’s flip phone will not work. We live out in the sticks here in Central NYS and they are already switching the cell towers over to 5G.

[marlin39a]

Y2K all over again ?

Let's see what happened on that day ...don't you remember ... nothing !

I remember Y2K. Went out for Chinese food with a woman. Took the leftovers back home. Woke up and all was good. Leftovers in the microwave. The only phones that are going to work are 4G and up. No BS, it’s coming.

[JimB..]

Yeah, 4g is pretty ubiquitous now and they need to repurpose the spectrum away from the low-revenue luddites that are hanging on to their flip phones.

[jonp]

I remember Y2K. Went out for Chinese food with a woman. Took the leftovers back home. Woke up and all was good. Leftovers in the microwave. The only phones that are going to work are 4G and up. No BS, it’s coming.

I still have the bunker stocked with food and gold. lol

Wife is getting regular messages from our cellphone carrier to update her phone. Not sure what is going on but I'm not too worried about it.

[GONRA]

GONRA & Mrs. GONRA havan olde (0G ?) Flip Fone.
Vendor assures us that it will still verk after the transition.
We'll See!

[ShooterAZ]

We're on Verizon, and we haven't got any notification of it (yet). I have an Iphone 10, and the wife has a 12 or 13 I think. Guess we'll see what happens.

[panhed65]

I got the notice from at&t several months ago, and they sent me a free junk phone. 1st one did not work, second one was also junk, did not work. spent several hours at their store, and maybe finally working well enough for me. talking about flip phones here. its all 4g and may be 10 years before they bring the 5g to my very rural area. I don't need much, just want a phone that works when needed.
Barry

[megasupermagnum]

To those of you not quite so tech savvy, this is a monumental hit. Not only will this effect 3g, it will also shut down a large amount of 4g phones as well. Verizon is doing this next year, and I'm sure most others will as well. There's really only a few owners of cell towers in the USA. Anything using Verizon towers will be shut down. The short list includes Tracphone, Page Plus, Straight talk, Total wireless, Xfinity, Net10. There are a ton more, and you can find that info online.

Now some of you are talking down on those using flip phones. You can get flip phones that are 4G LTE and possibly now 5G capable. On the other side, a phone that is only 3 years old might not be 4G LTE capable, and would be shut off.

Now why is this bad besides having to buy a new phone? The #1 issue with cell phones in this country is coverage. There are huge sections in rural areas that don't have coverage at all. Even if you have enough to send a text, you probably can't use mobile data. All these commercials push speed, speed, speed. Maybe this is what city people that live in a tower want, which is stupid because everyone has free wifi now. What many don't realize is the gigantic hit we are going to take in coverage. There's a bunch of differences in each generation that I do not understand, but the obvious change is the radio frequency. Each generation has used a higher frequency.

What this means to us is each generation, while faster, also looses range. The range of 3G can be up to 30 miles from a tower. 4G is about 10 miles from a tower. 5G shortband as it is being released in the USA has a stated range of 500 meters from a tower. Let that sink in for a moment. You have to be 500 meters or 547 yards under IDEAL conditions to make use of 5G network. My current phone has 5G capability, and there is a 5G tower about a mile away, I can see it plain as day. I can't even get a hint of signal from it, 4G only. They should be trying to find a way to increase the range of these towers, not shorten it.

This is pure idiotic. I sure don't want cell towers every 1000 meters across the country. Sure, it's not lazer fast, but you can reasonably stream movies, download things, do anything you really need to do on a phone with 3G mobile data. It's fast enough, and the range is fantastic. Now with my current phone, if I can't see a blinking light of a tower, I'm SOL, 4G won't reach.

[rbuck351]

Wife and I use Verison. She just got a new 5g and my old 3g flip phone was pretty beat up so I thought I would get a new flip phone. They have one with a bullet proof case with 4g so I thought I would go with that. They said my 3g would not be working much longer as they were shutting down service for the 3g so I got the phone. Tried to use it when I got home and found it won't work inside the house and barely works outside the house. Also the new phone only lasts about one day on a charge where my old 3g worked about a week on a charge. I took it back and told them it does me no good to have a phone that won't work so now I don't have a cell phone and don't miss it one bit.
When a new item doesn't work as well as my old one, I will resist spending more money for less service. Also I've never been one of those folks that is glued to his phone.

[armoredman]

I just had to buy my son a new phone - we switched carriers due to the divorce, and ATT told him that his older phone is only 3G and they couldn't put it on their network.

[abunaitoo]

I just have an old flip phone.
Will it still work??????

Seems like a good way to force everyone to buy a new phone.
Is that even legal?????

[megasupermagnum]

I just have an old flip phone.
Will it still work??????

Seems like a good way to force everyone to buy a new phone.
Is that even legal?????

Unless your phone is 4G LTE or 5G capable, no it will not work. Yes it is legal. Yes it is stupid. Unless another company starts up this late in the game with better rural coverage, it is what it is. You can buy phones dirt cheap, sometimes only $20. They will make calls and texts. As for the mobile data, I'm already looking into satellite hotspots.

[trebor44]

So how is that required 'phone upgrade' proclamation going to work with the supposed 'supply chain' issue? Where do the cell phones come from?

[Sasquatch-1]

I am with AT&T. About 6-8 months ago they sent me a notice that as of 2/2022 my phone would not work on the network. I went to the AT&T store near by to look at phones. All I want is a phone that can make phone calls. In the past 10 years I may have taken 5 photos with my phone. I do not text. And I have a computer at home for the internet.

Well I looked at the cheapest phone they had and almost bought it. Decided to go home and think about it for a while and low and behold about a week later I get a "LETTER" from them stating they were sending me a new phone free of charge. It was the same phone I looked at.

It works ok and holds a charge for a few days but has a lot of features I will never use.

I miss my Motorola 8000.:groner:

[myg30]

Most of the time my iPhone 8 says AT&T and only 1 or 2 bars of signal. If I head toward town it goes 5G.
Guess this supports the post about the short range of 5G.

Keep in mind your cell phones should still connect to 911 because it’s by satellite regardless of signal shown on the display. Even if you have taken the service off of it. I was told the 911 operator will see the name of the last registered owner of it.
If anyone thinks this has changed please correct this statement.

Mike

[GhostHawk]

Wife and I upgraded some 4 months back to 4g phones. We run consumer cellular, been very happy with them.
So we are ready.

We went with the Moto G Stylus at 190# ea. But they do have a great camera.

By forcing everyone to 4 or 5g they flush out all the old flip phone users, the pay as you go track phones, etc.

You either join the rush and start contributing real $$$ to their pockets or go without. They don't care.

I personally won't ever go 5g, heard too many horror stories about that stuff.

Would love to see an open source community figure out a way to step up and setup an open source 3g network.

[MUSTANG]

I just have an old flip phone.
Will it still work??????

Seems like a good way to force everyone to buy a new phone.
Is that even legal?????

Remember Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts? Call it a Tax and it's legal. Then Congress can do whatever it wants Constitutional Rights be Danged.

[MUSTANG]

Concerning 5G towers; 500 Meter Range etc...

The laws of physics can't be changed. VHF to some extent will "Flow" over terrain and penetrate foliage; whereas when we get into the UHF and SHF band these traits are lost. The 5G frequencies are highly influenced by foliage, obstacles (your house walls dependent on construction), and other factors - couple this with cities of hundreds of thousands to Millions and to be able to support these people a network needs MANY Towers/Sites but are forced to operate at low powers in order to reuse the frequencies across MANY towers/sites to support these populations. When we get to the small towns/rural we will see the later flavors of 4G retained (for some period) because of distances. I speculate we will see a mandate to ADD a status reporting computer to older vehicles that do not have them within 10 years.

Over time we will see the Interstates, US Highways (with heavy traffic) populated with 5G along the highway. This will be for two purposes (1) to keep the cell phone/video addicts sated and reduce complaints, and (2) allow the computers on board today's Cars/Trucks to communicate with Networks and report traffic loads - stopped vehicles, etc.., and finally (3) to support reporting of Miles Traveled by specific vehicles (Yes tracking YOU) for taxation purposes as we migrate TOO (Not from) both Fuel and Miles Traveled being taxed by States and Federal Government.

[Daekar]

They have been marketing the heck out of 5G for ages, but the reality is that it absolutely will not ever be the sole technology in play, the range is just too short. In high density markets, deploying antennae might be worth it, but outside anywhere denser than suburbs it's not going to be an option. 4G LTE is going to be around in some form for years.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Tracfone ended my Mom's service in Dec 2020, she was using a 12 yr old flip phone. She switched to Verizon and a iphone 7.
I'm still using Tracfone's pay as you go "smartphone" service with a iphone 6.5

[reloader28]

This is not new news. I started getting this message since last spring. They said all 3g would be gone.
I'd hate to guess how old my flip phone was, but I didnt have to buy my new flip phone. They gave me one. Why???? Because they are doing everything they can to easily keep track of everyone.
Tried their darndest to get me to get a smart phone instead. I would rather go without a phone at all than get one of them. My house phone still works.
It dont do any good to try and track me anyways because 98% of the time I leave it sit at home.

[rbuck351]

They forced me out of the cellphone system, well they actually allowed me to not have a phone. I never like carrying one around and making sure it stayed charged. I used it once or twice a month to make a call but the worst part was swmbo could keep tabs on me. Now I'm free of the leash. If they force me to put some kind of tracker in my car (none have one now) I'm fairly sure the insides will fry somehow. Electronics in cars just aren't very reliable.

[waksupi]

Y2K all over again ?

Let's see what happened on that day ...don't you remember ... nothing !

I disagree! Yard sales were fantastic after it all blew over!

[JoeJames]

I got a free one from AT&T. Done waited them out; so they replaced my old 3G flip phone for free with a 4G flip phone. Still yet trying to figure it out.

[gwpercle]

Yeah, 4g is pretty ubiquitous now and they need to repurpose the spectrum away from the low-revenue luddites that are hanging on to their flip phones.

I got a brand new Flip-Phone about 3 weeks ago ... it say's Verizon and below that it says Kyocera (which I don't have a clue is ) and it's a brand new flip phone ...my first one . Wife thought I would like it because it small size , folds up to half the size of a flat phone ... fits in pocket better so I might carry it more ... I might , pockets get full quick ...if you want me call my wife she carries a stupid phone everywhere she goes including the toilet room .
Gary

[georgerkahn]

Already got notified that my dad’s flip phone will not work. We live out in the sticks here in Central NYS and they are already switching the cell towers over to 5G.

Same here in further-out sticks! I LOVE my flip Trac-fone, but they switched something on towers to grossly reduce coverage area already -- including no signal :( at our camp. Now, I received a flyer with "smart-phones" to choose from... Sadly, I'm thinking of sucking it up and getting a Verizon-based iPhone from Spectrum. $14.00/month including unlimited calling and texting... it may even beat the Trac-fone?

geo

[Sasquatch-1]

This is not new news. I started getting this message since last spring. They said all 3g would be gone.
I'd hate to guess how old my flip phone was, but I didnt have to buy my new flip phone. They gave me one. Why???? Because they are doing everything they can to easily keep track of everyone.
Tried their darndest to get me to get a smart phone instead. I would rather go without a phone at all than get one of them. My house phone still works.
It dont do any good to try and track me anyways because 98% of the time I leave it sit at home.

If you got the same "Flip 4" that I got it is a smart phone. Just not as easy to use as the flat phones.

[JimB..]

Keep in mind your cell phones should still connect to 911 because it’s by satellite regardless of signal shown on the display. Even if you have taken the service off of it. I was told the 911 operator will see the name of the last registered owner of it.
If anyone thinks this has changed please correct this statement.

Mike

911 is not available on a cell phone via satellite. In most cases a carrier will allow a cell phone that has no subscriber service to place a call to 911. This may be mandatory, I don’t recall anymore, but it is absolutely terrestrial and not satellite.

I don’t doubt for a min that they are shutting down 3G, the 4G, 4G/LTE basestation gear is less efficient when connecting with 3G phones and I don’t thing the 5G basestation supports it at all. I would not expect a significant reduction in coverage from a 3G to a 4G/LTE change because it’s the same service using the same towers in the same frequencies. Where you might take a hit is the max radiating power in the old phone, they tended to be higher. I do not believe that they are forcing rural folks to 5G only.

5G is so many things that it is hard to even discuss. It is not a frequency and it is not a range. T-mobile for example has a 5G implementation down in either the 600mhz or 700mhz band and the range is measured in miles while a number of carriers have 5G networks in millimeter wave bands in NYC with ranges as short as 100 meters. 5G is a marketing term and means different things with each implementation. Oh, and 6G is coming.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I just have an old flip phone.
Will it still work??????

Seems like a good way to force everyone to buy a new phone.
Is that even legal?????

Congress green lights corporations fleecing the public for money.

[popper]

if you want me call my wife she carries a stupid phone everywhere she goes -- an has her brain in left hand.

[JimB..]

Congress green lights corporations fleecing the public for money.

You could just throw it away and avoid any further expense, make yourself fleece-proof.

The company investors built the old stuff, now they want to build new stuff. As a 3G customer you don’t generate enough profit for them to bother with you, and somehow that’s the government’s fault?

[MUSTANG]

Keep in mind those Thousands of Satellites being put up in LEO. They will provide "Home Streaming TV & Internet". If you have internet; then it's a step to bridge WIFI to Internet - most currently do that in their homes via a box from the vendor. Not much of a step to migrate to the WIFI and "Internet" being beamed down from the satellite. The great Svengali Mustang says in the very near future one will see Hand Held cell phones (not sat phones) being able to connect via satellite to the SMS and Voice cell phone systems.