The End of 3G Wireless Era Enables America's 5G Future

On January 3, Verizon announced that its 3G CDMA mobile network has been decommissioned. The retirement of Verizon's 3G network had been scheduled to take place by December 31, 2021. Now all three nationwide mobile wireless broadband providers now have retired their 3G networks.

As explained in my September 2021 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "AT&T's 3G Sunset Will Make Way for Speedy 5G Services": "Old 3G networks consume significant amounts of spectrum for a small and fast-shrinking user base. That valuable spectrum needs to be repurposed to timely roll out 5G networks… so that consumers can benefit from their promised speeds and capabilities." And in an August 2021 Perspectives from FSF Scholars titled "T-Mobile's Timely 3G Sunset Will Spur Stronger Services," I wrote that "any regulatory intervention to extend the life of 3G networks would keep wireless services stuck in the slow-speed era to the overall detriment of consumers." Blog posts (here, here, and here) by FSF scholars also tracked the progress of 3G network retirement during 2022.

Fortunately, unjustified regulatory obstacles to 3G retirement appear to have been avoided. When it comes to the deployment of 5G services, every bit of available spectrum helps. The spectrum used to support dwindling 3G legacy services is now available for next-gen 5G services.