US telecoms giant AT&T Mobility has confirmed that it is starting to reconfigure its 3G spectrum in the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands ahead of a planned shutdown of its 3G networks in February 2022. In a statement to Mobile World Live, a company spokesperson noted that the cellco is in the process of ‘redeploying spectrum currently used for 3G services to support mobile services on our 4G LTE and 5G networks based on market-by-market evaluations’.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, AT&T formally shut down its 2G service on 1 January 2017. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless – AT&T’s chief mobile rival – stopped activating 3G CDMA-based handsets in July last year, and plans to switch off its 3G networks altogether at the end of 2019.