T-Mobile has confirmed that it will retire its 2G GSM network next month.
Plans to retire the service by August 3, 2026, were announced by the American mobile carrier last week via the company's network evolution webpage.
The announcement follows reports that T-Mobile was notifying customers that it will start migrating customers on 3G and 4G-era rate plans to more expensive 5G plans, as reported by Fierce Wireless.
T-Mobile previously retired its 3G mobile network back in 2022.
However, the company has been slower in shutting down its 2G network compared to rivals AT&T and Verizon. AT&T called time on its 2G network back in 2017, while Verizon retired 2G in 2020.
“T-Mobile retained GSM longer than other carriers to give customers and partners additional time to migrate legacy devices. Other carriers shut down their GSM networks earlier, and T-Mobile helped fill that gap by maintaining support while customers transitioned to newer technologies,” said a T-Mobile spokesperson.
The carrier is instead looking to push customers on legacy 2G plans to 4G and 5G plans instead.
Launched in the early 1990's, 2G heralded the beginning of the data era, and introduced SMS (Short Message Service).