For months major phone service carriers have been telling customers to ‘upgrade’ their cell phones, citing the switch to 5G. Many customers have commented to us they think its a scam to force customers into buying new phones. Its left people confused as asking “will my phone REALLY stop working when they switch to 5G towers?”
The short answer is ‘It depends.”
- It depends on what kind of phone you have
- It depends on who your carrier is
If you have a phone that uses 3G and below (your phone says 3G in the top right corner), your phone will no longer work once the 3G towers are shut down. The timing of the shutdown varies by carrier but most will be shut down by December of 2022.
If you have a phone that uses 4G but NOT 4G LTE (your phone says 4G in the top right corner) your phone also may no longer work properly once the 3G towers are shut down. This means you may lose call and data coverage in most places. Again, the majority of carriers will shut down the 4G (but not 4G LTE towers) during 2022.
4G LTE customers will continue to enjoy the use of their devices until the shut down of those towers are confirmed.
Here are the dates for tower shut downs by carrier as confirmed by the FCC website as of January 2022: along with links to the official carrier sites. You can use these links to help identify if your devices will still work.
Sprint: 3G Network shutdown by March 31, 4G LTE network by June 30 2022
T-Mobile: 3G Network shut down by July 1, 2022 T-MOBILE & SPRINT WEBSITE LINK
AT&T: 3G Network shut down in February 2022 – ATT WEBSITE LINK
Verizon: 3G Network shut down to be completed by December 2022 VERIZON WEBSITE LINK
For detailed explanation on what this means for your current smart phone have a chat with your wireless carrier representative.
*The dates and details of the carrier tower shut downs are subject to change.
For more on news on carrier changes that impact your cell phone follow our social media or stop by the Mobile Lizard Store in Baltimore today