All three major telcos have been warning customers to make sure they upgrade from 3G-only devices, but also to check if their 4G and 5G devices have something called Voice over LTE (VoLTE), so that they don’t get caught out when 3G networks shut down.
Telstra and Optus 3G shutdowns
Telstra: June 30, 2024
Other affected carriers using the Telstra network include:
- ALDI Mobile
- Belong
- Boost Mobile
- Exetel
- Lycamobile
- MATE
- More
- numobile
- Superloop
- Tangerine
- Woolworths Mobile
Optus: September, 2024
Other affected carriers using the Optus network include:
- amaysim
- Aussie Broadband
- Catch Connect
- Circles.Life
- Coles Mobile
- Dodo
- iPrimus
- Moose Mobile
- Southern Phone
- SpinTel
- Yomojo
The 25 most common devices which may be affected
According to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association.
- Alcatel 2038
- Alcatel OneTouch 2045
- Apple iPhone 5
- Apple iPhone 5C
- Apple iPhone 5S
- Aspera A42
- Doro PhoneEasy 623 OPTUS
- Doro 6521
- Google Pixel 2 XL
- Huawei E5331
- Huawei E5251s-2
- Huawei Y6 Prime
- Nokia 301
- Oppo A57
- Oppo F1s
- Oppo F5 Youth
- Optus X Smart
- Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini
- Samsung Galaxy S5
- ZTE Blade A0605
So, they will shut down 3G in areas that already have poor mobile coverage, even with 4G, and that won’t get 5G any time soon. This will increase the number of people with poor mobile coverage and no other options. If at least there was some form of commitment to roll out 5G quickly and comprehensively, or some visibility of rollout plans, but there’s not even that. So once again, we are at the mercy of the profit-driven service providers, who haven’t expanded 5G past the major population centres in the five years since it has become available, and have no clear intentions of doing so.
Satellite cellular coverage will probably swoop in and make an absolute shitload for one of the telcos.
See Vodafone’s plan for NZ, it’ll probably end up being the same here. Even just getting country-wide data and SMS would be a hell of an improvement over what’s available now.
They are shutting down 3G to reclaim the bandwidth to use for 5G. Spectrum is precious to the carriers and it’s not going to sit unused.
They are completely turn off analog, it’s all digital from here forward, which saves a lot of bandwidth. It will be worth it. Shutting down 3G will allow them to turn up 5G, it’s a necessary step to reach the promises of 5G.
This already happened with the previous generations but there were fewer devices, landlines were still common, and there were tech reasons to upgrade regularly.
Now people are holding onto devices for a decade. It’s not a significant number but even 1% in an age where cellphones are often the only form of communication it’s a lot of people.
And it’s critical that people know this is happening since they will lose the ability to contact emergency services.
And there are a bunch of plans that are 4G only anyways.
The ones with 5G also cost a lot more.
What is the “ones” that you are referring to?
Are there plans that differenciate between 4g and 5g?
Or do you mean phones, or towers/infrastructure?
Because both the modems in phones and the infrastructure goes down as their production is scaled up. I don’t think there’s any new mainstream modem chipsets that don’t support 5g anymore.
I was talking about plans, so I meant the plans with 5G will usually cost more.
Cheapy plans/providers are usually 4G only. But with the relatively short range for 5g, unless heaps of 5g towers/access points are added, a lot of people won’t notice any difference except maybe battery drain.
Maybe the Telcos will add 5g access points to all their customers routers. Maybe the NBN could add it to their modems. There’s been talk about adding it to power poles and street lights lol. Of course, anything out of a town or city will be pretty unlikely to get 5g.
Yes, most of the pre-paid carriers I have checked have more expensive 5g plans. I am with aldi mobile which does.