BT confirms it's switching off 3G in UK from Jan next year

I'm going to bet on an extension once they realize how much infra is still on 3G. Power, water, gas, sewage, lots of telemetry and control still uses it. That stuff has a design lifetime of 30 years or more and replacing it or parts of it is very costly.

They should think about switching on 5G as well.<p>The UK being one of the worst countries for 5G deployment, with totally fake coverage (shows the 5G logo but connected to LTE).<p><pre><code> - &quot;On average, 5G users spent 10.1% of the time connected to a 5G network.&quot; Ofcom, July 2023 </code></pre> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ofcom.org.uk&#x2F;__data&#x2F;assets&#x2F;pdf_file&#x2F;0018&#x2F;264600&#x2F;mobile-matters-2023-report.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ofcom.org.uk&#x2F;__data&#x2F;assets&#x2F;pdf_file&#x2F;0018&#x2F;264600&#x2F;...</a>

In my experience with my phone Samsung S10e, and my provider being a reseller, I am able to use 4g and 3g (when available). And 3g provides better and superior coverage.<p>With LTE, few times I am unable to browse or do anything because I have no signal, if I switch to 3g I immediately have 2 or 3 bars and can use it. Unfortunately, I can&#x27;t force the phone to use 3g as I used to do, because more and more areas are now without any kind of 3g coverage.<p>So I guess I will have just bad 4g signal, until I decide to upgrade a perfectly fine working phone with 5g support, and only then I will be able to discover if 5g is good as 3g or bad as 4g.

Some longer term hardware is 3G, many car telematics, sat-navs etc for one.

I hope this is coupled with an improvement in 4G and 5G coverage, then. I quite frequently find myself on 3G only in the UK.<p>What I don&#x27;t get is why you can&#x27;t buy a plan that supports roaming on every major network. I&#x27;d pay double for a plan where my phone connects to whatever 4G or 5G is available regardless of provider, but the free market doesn&#x27;t seem to have figured out this idea.

Does make me wonder what will happen to a lot of the Gas and Electricity Smart Meters that rely on 3G (will they fall back to 2G?)

Meanwhile here in Germany we&#x27;re still on Edge half the time on trains etc.

Hopefully this will improve the privacy my old VW Golf by stopping the telemetry from working.<p>I have a feeling that it&#x27;s already stopped working as I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;m getting traffic updates any more.

In line with most carriers across Europe. Sweden&#x27;s native (and Nordic) carriers are also shutting 3G down during 2024.