2G and 3G Sunsetting and What it Means for IoT

For a sense of how old the Third Generation of telecommunications technology is, consider that the first 3G iPhone was also advertised with the exciting brand-new feature of being able to record video without reaching for your camcorder.   

The global shutdown of 2G and 3G cellular networks represents far more than simply old features getting an upgrade to stay marketable, and the switch marks a watershed moment for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry.  

In this article we’re going to take an executive overview of both the opportunities and operational risks involved in disconnecting millions of legacy devices across industries like smart metering, logistics, and EV charging.  

Foundational Technologies  

The second and third generation legacy networks were the foundational bedrock for the original wave of machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT deployments, prized for their much lower costs and ubiquitous coverage that was used to launch an industry that connected everything from smart meters to asset trackers.  

Given the poetic term of ‘sunsetting’, this planned obsolescence marks a big step in the managed evolution of commercial telco, compelling businesses worldwide to retool their connectivity strategies.  

Sunsetting is the deliberate process where mobile network operators (MNOs) decommission older network technologies to reallocate the finite and valuable radio spectrum they occupy to newer, more efficient 4G and 5G networks.  

This transition is driven by a combination of ravenous demand for the high speeds and bandwidth of 4G and 5G, the significant operational and energy costs of maintaining multiple legacy networks, declining user traffic on older gens, and the need for the enhanced security features that modern networks provide.  

Essentially, and according to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standards, 2G networks use radio frequencies of 850 to 1800 MHz or 900 to 1900 MHz bands. Meanwhile, 3G networks use between 850 to 1900 MHz or 900 to 2100 MHz. There’s a set number of frequencies available for commercial radio traffic without majorly complicating the process, and by now those old bands given to 2G and 3G are far better used to provide higher data throughput and more valuable functionality.  

The Impact on IoT 

An uncontrolled and unmanaged shutdown of the 2G and 3G networks would be operationally disastrous for millions of deployed IoT devices. For long-lifecycle devices, dependable connectivity is the entire basis of their function and without a network to communicate on they’d be instantly obsolete.  

The scale of the migration is huge, as it’s estimated by sector analysts that more than 50% of all cellular-connected IoT deployments still rely on 2G or 3G connectivity. This means the ongoing changeover isn't a niche issue affecting a few forgotten old legacy sensors but systemic transformation for a massive install-base of devices, many of which were designed with operational lifespans of another 10 to 20 years. The imperative to adapt is being felt across numerous industries, as is the risk of disruption to critical infrastructure and well-established business models.    

The smart metering sector is particularly aware, due to its heightened vulnerability from the massive scale and long deployment cycles of its devices. The UK government endorsed and subsidized the deployment of electrical smart meters for over seven million British homes, which a 2023 Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report identified as not only having missed its target but having no adequate plans for what happens when the enabling 2G and 3G networks close. 

Such consequences extend far beyond the logistical nuisance of replacing millions of units. This disruption threatens the core functions of remote monitoring and billing systems, which could lead to inaccurate bills and a costly reversion to manual meter readings. This fundamentally undermines the entire business case for smart grids, which depend on a constant flow of data for efficient management, load balancing, and resiliency.    

Similarly, the otherwise robustly progressive electric vehicle (EV) industry faces a challenge, as the majority of EV charging stations still depend on 3G for their networked capabilities. Failure to address the sunset would mean these chargers could one day abruptly lose their ability to process digital payments, link to user accounts for billing, provide vital usage analytics back to operators, or even appear on charging network maps that drivers use to find them.  

The automotive industry is currently busy transforming its core model from one-time sales into smart, ongoing-revenue generation and having an entire tier of its essential infrastructure suddenly go ‘dumb’ is exactly the direction it’s moving away from.  

In the world of industrial automation, the imperative to meet the sunset challenge is equally important. Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications in sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and energy depend heavily on cellular connectivity models for remote sensors, tracking systems, and equipment control.  

Those devices built to be deployed in remote edge locations such as in pipelines, weather stations, or across vast agricultural fields are the same ones designed to leverage the most robustly veteran network technologies. Without managed 2G and 3G migration, most existing precision agriculture networks will simply fail, with everything from critical data to predictive maintenance and basic safety monitoring going offline.    

Finally, the global logistics and supply chain ecosystem, which has come to rely on real-time visibility, has its work cut out for it. The industry is heavily dependent on 2G and 3G for asset tracking and fleet management telematics. An unmanaged sunset threatens to create vast blind spots where vehicles, shipping containers, and high-value cargo would effectively disappear from tracking dashboards.  

At best this would force a regression to highly inefficient manual processes, such as drivers having to call dispatchers to report their location, but the impact isn't really about individual devices going offline. It's about the systemic failure of entire business operations and critical infrastructure systems that were built on the assumption of uninterrupted 2G and 3G availability. The issue isn’t one of hardware replacement, but in the disruption to the data flows that have become integral to modern efficiency, billing, compliance, and safety.    

Building a Transition Plan 

In the face of the 2G and 3G sunset, preparation is everything and businesses must act decisively to avoid serious consequences, from service disruptions and disappointed customers to the financial liabilities of broken service level agreements.  

A proactive, phased migration plan is essential to not only mitigate these risks but also to turn a mandatory update into a strategic upgrade of their entire IoT model. Such a plan should be treated not as a purely technical project but as a cross-functional business initiative involving finance, operations, and product management.    

The first and most critical phase is a comprehensive assessment and audit of all connected devices. No organization can manage a risk it doesn't know it has. This inventory must meticulously identify which devices still rely on 2G or 3G networks, precise locations, the criticality of their function to the business, and the already scheduled end of lifecycle.  

This can be a particularly daunting task for organizations with large, geographically dispersed fleets, where mobile assets aren’t always where they are supposed to be, making the physical audit a significant logistical challenge.    

Following the audit, the next phase involves a strategic review of the entire IoT deployment and its underlying business case. No business plan would opt to include a forced migration, but since one’s here anyway then it’s a perfect catalyst to ask critical questions.

• Are there existing performance or connectivity issues that a new technology could solve?  

• Can recent developments in the IoT space be leveraged to enhance the product or service offering?  

• Is the original business case still valid, or does it need to be updated to reflect new capabilities and market conditions?  

With a clear understanding of the assets at risk and a revised strategy in place, an organization can move to the migration planning and execution phase. This involves developing a detailed, phased migration plan with clear timelines, milestones, and assigned responsibilities. Ideally this should be sequenced based on the criticality of the devices and the specific network shutdown dates in their regions of operation.  

While it’s tempting to migrate the most mission-critical systems first, some caution is advised. It's likely wise to begin with non-core devices first, to test the process and workflows before transitioning the truly essential systems.  

A well-balanced plan should also allow for significant operational costs and logistics of sending technicians into the field to physically swap modules, SIMs, or entire devices, which can represent a substantial financial investment. If these callouts can be covered by already budgeted end-of-lifecycle reclamations, so much the better.    

The final phase is testing, validation, and deployment. Before executing a full-scale rollout, new hardware and connectivity solutions must be thoroughly tested under real-world load conditions to ensure compatibility and reliability. This will ideally happen with close collaboration from device vendors and expert connectivity partners to secure necessary firmware updates and have technical support on standby.  

The deployment itself should be executed in controlled waves, allowing teams to monitor performance closely, address any unforeseen challenges promptly, and minimize operational downtime – which it would be prudent to assume there will be some of. A successful migration plan is therefore a complex business strategy that requires careful coordination across departments to manage budgets, logistics, and product evolution effectively.    

Future Proofing 

While it might seem a little bit like fortune-cookie wisdom, the 2G and 3G sunset is not an ending but the beginning of a new chapter for IoT.  

The transition provides both a lesson in the value of future-proofing and a powerful opportunity to move beyond simple connectivity and build more capable, efficient, and resilient IoT fleets. The key to capitalizing on this moment is to go beyond mere like-for-like replacement and embrace new tech designed to deliver value across even longer timescales. 

For IoT applications that require high data speeds and low latency, such as high-definition streaming or autonomous piloting systems, the migration to 4G and 5G networks is already the clear path forward. By now 4G LTE is a mature, globally available, and highly reliable technology that is expected to remain a cornerstone of cellular connectivity for at least another decade, making it a safe and dependable investment.    

While the new era of eSIM-powered 5G is transforming whole industries and proving novel and exciting new applications on an almost daily basis, for a significant proportion of existing IoT use-cases that degree of speed is simply unnecessary and potentially too power-consuming.  

This is where Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) have emerged as popular transition solutions for IoT fleets. The two leading cellular LPWAN technologies are LTE-M (Long-Term Evolution for Machines) and NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT).  

LTE-M is versatile, with the higher data rate of the two at speeds up to 1 Mbps which seems modest to a consumer but is typically plentiful for an industrial sensor.  It also operates with low latency and enhanced mobility support, such as smooth handoffs between cell towers as the device travels. These characteristics make it suited for mobility assets such as vehicle trackers and wearables, as well as applications that need periodic over-the-air firmware updates.  

In contrast, NB-IoT is more specialized, optimized for massive deployments of static, autonomous devices. It’s designed for machines that send small and infrequent packets of data, and don’t expect to see much in the way of human intervention for their lifecycle. Its primary advantages are ultra-low power consumption, enabling device battery life of up to ten years, a lower module cost, and good signal penetration for devices in challenging locations, such as deep inside buildings.    

eSIM Powered  

True future-proofing for fleets goes beyond the choice of radio technology. It also involves rethinking how device connectivity is managed and achieved in the first place.  

Plastic SIM cards both made the IoT industry what it is today, but also lock a device to a single carrier for its entire lifecycle, creating significant operational friction and vendor lock-in.  

The gold-standard modern IoT solution is the eUICC (embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card), which is more generally bundled into what’s referred to simply as eSIM technology.   

This small suite of complimentary systems allows network profiles to be downloaded and switched remotely, over-the-air, eliminating the need to ever physically swap a SIM card again. This provides ultimate flexibility, empowering businesses to change connectivity providers in response to coverage issues and commercial changes. It even proofs a fleet against future network sunsets, because it’s worth keeping in mind that once upon a time network engineers thought that 3G would last forever, too.  

This flexibility breaks the chains of vendor lock-in and dramatically reduces the operational cost and complexity of managing a global IoT fleet. The most resilient and future-proof architecture combines multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) hardware that can support LTE-M, NB-IoT, and 4G/5G with the dynamic provisioning capabilities of an eSIM.  

This layered failover approach insulates a business from both future network evolutions and the more immediate commercial limitations of a single provider.    

A Global Perspective 

There’s no single global doomsday for the 2G/3G shutdown, and instead we’ll see a complex patchwork of regional, national, and operator-specific schedules.  

Businesses with global IoT deployments will have to navigate this fragmented landscape with care, as a device's connectivity can depend entirely on its geographic location or its specific provider. The sunsets are dictated by unique local market characteristics, regulatory environments, government interventions, and regional adoption rates.  

While most network engineers expect support for 2G and 3G to be almost non-existent in developed regions by 2026, these networks will persist for years to come in other parts of the world.    

The Americas, particularly the United States, pursued an aggressive and early shutdown of 3G networks. Major carriers like AT&T and Verizon largely completed their 3G sunsets by Q4 of 2022, driven by the US market’s enthusiasm to free up and auction spectrum to expand 5G services to meet intense consumer demand for high-speed data.    

Europe has adopted a characteristically more cautious and bureaucratic approach, and many European operators are choosing to shut down their 3G networks before their 2G networks. This seemingly counterintuitive strategy is a direct result of the deep entrenchment of 2G in government-controlled M2M and IoT infrastructure.  

A large and diverse array of legacy devices, including civil engineering smart-meters and EU-mandated eCall vehicle emergency systems, rely on the tried-and-tested low-bandwidth 2G network for essential services. As such, the European transition is moving at the speed of bureaucracy rather than the market, and so regulators will be keeping the 2G networks active for the foreseeable future while critical infrastructure and its governing legislation is upgraded.    

The Asia-Pacific region is often the inverse of the European, where regulation rarely keeps up with market innovation. Many regional operators here already shut down 2G years ago, well before 3G sunsetting, motivated by massive 4G and 5G data appetites, such as is the case in Japan and South Korea.  

Meanwhile, in the more emergent connectivity markets of India and Africa, there are still significant 2G consumer bases and few formal sunset schedules. Here, 2G remains the dominant technology and supports a large population of feature phones and provides the backbone for services critical to national economies, such as mobile payment systems.  

In markets where price is the dominant motivator, the low cost of 2G handsets and services will ensure its continued relevance, meaning the network will likely remain active across many Indian and African regions for at least the next decade.  

Such regional fragmentation will continue to be a source of complexity for companies managing global IoT fleets. This underscores the critical need for multi-regional, future-proof connectivity solutions that can intelligently adapt to local network environments.    

Next Steps  

The world’s varied sunset strategies are all direct reflections of each market's technological and socioeconomic context. The decision of when, and whether to retire 2G or 3G first, is a governmental choice based on which legacy network is more deeply embedded in a region's critical services and consumer habits.  

In Europe, 2G's role in M2M is more vital than 3G's dwindling role in mobile data. In Africa, 2G's function in enabling basic banking and commerce is indispensable. This demonstrates that cellular technology is not merely infrastructure, but a deeply entrenched social system. 

For international business, the takeaway is that global 2G and 3G sunset is an unavoidable and complex transition that’s reshaping the IoT landscape. Failing to prepare is a simply unacceptable risk, threatening to junk millions of devices and crash critical operations.  

However, it also presents a huge opportunity for innovation. In just a couple of years, the most successful IoT operators will be the ones who saw sunsetting not as a simple, reactive replacement of old tech but as a proactive and strategic shift to a flexible and resilient connectivity model.  

By finding the right specialist connectivity partner, thorough planning, and developing a nuanced understanding of the relevant global landscape, businesses can successfully navigate this challenge.  

1GLOBAL has developed a deep understanding of the challenges facing global IoT connectivity and consistently delivers future-proof solutions to customers. As 2G and 3G networks sunset worldwide, resilient connectivity becomes even more strategic. 

1GLOBAL’s IoT solutions deliver eSIM-powered, multi-network, and future-ready connectivity across LTE-M, NB-IoT, and 5G. 

Contact 1GLOBAL to learn how to better safeguard your connected operations for the decade ahead, and beyond.