Navigating the Spectrum Sunsetting Roadmap 2024-2040: Strategies for Cellular Technology Generations Sunset
The Spectrum Sunsetting Roadmap 2024-2040 outlines strategies for phasing out older cellular technology generations. The mobile industry is facing challenges with network sunsetting, specifically with the continued use of 3G and 2G for legacy applications. Shutting down 2G networks has proven to be complicated, leading to concerns about avoiding similar issues when phasing out 4G in the next decade.
Following the introduction of 4G in 2009, certain countries quickly decided to discontinue 2G and 3G networks, particularly if they did not have many older applications or users still relying on them. Without any pressure from stakeholders or regulators to keep the older generations, telecom operators were able to reduce costs by phasing out these networks, and also free up spectrum for newer technologies like 4G and eventually 5G.
While the early iterations of 1G technology quickly disappeared due to demand for digital voice and SMS texting, 2G has remained in certain markets for over 40 years since its initial launch in Finland in 1991. This demonstrates the unique situations of different markets, which are not always influenced by economic factors or average revenue per user.
Certainly, 2G and 3G networks are typically linked to lower profits, leading many telecommunications companies to face a dilemma. They must decide whether to keep maintaining these older technologies despite the costs involved, or to shut them down and risk facing issues like damaging their reputation or losing customers. While operators may not have a legal obligation to keep providing these services, they are hesitant to alienate a significant portion of their consumer or business clientele.
This reason has resulted in the creation of packages that allow older generations of cellular technology to coexist more affordably with 4G and 5G. This is achieved by sharing base stations or spectrum, sometimes with the assistance of Open RAN technology. Further details on these packages are discussed later in the report.
Our research indicates that there is a significant variation in sunset times for 2G and 3G networks, and this trend is expected to continue for 4G in the 2030s. However, the extent of this variation is likely to be reduced as efforts are being made to phase out support for older generations once full coverage is achieved with the most up-to-date RAN technology.
In some markets, the slow process of discontinuing 2G and 3G networks has made operators frustrated with the usual 10-year cycle of upgrading cellular services to new generations.
Certain telecommunication companies are advocating for a different approach with the introduction of 6G, favoring a more seamless and gradual transition to new technology to avoid the disruptions seen during the phase-out of 2G networks.
In order to predict when different generations of mobile networks will be phased out, a sunset forecast chart has been created spanning from 2011 to 2040. By 2011, most operators had already introduced 2G and 3G services, while 4G was also becoming widely available. The introduction of 5G is represented by the start of the red segment on the chart, with deployments starting from 2019 onwards.
This represents the most recent prediction in the RAN Research Archive, which currently contains:
Rethink Technology Research is a well-known analyst firm with a 21-year history of expertise in areas such as 5G, wireless technology, entertainment, streaming media, Internet of Things, and now also focusing on the energy market. Their wireless research team, RAN Research, creates market predictions and technology reports.
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