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USA 3G sunset - swapping SIM could create headache

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Rick Law:
Arrgh...  In the USA, both T-Mobile and AT&T are beginning to sunset their 3G.

If you are still using 3G phone, don't swap SIM around...  I ran into this problem so I'm alerting others to expect possible problem with SIM swapping.

AT&T (my regular network, 3G shutdown is scheduled for Feb 2022)

I was expecting a call but my regular (3G) phone was on low-battery.  So, I put the SIM into another phone (4G/LTE) to catch the calls while my regular phone is being charged.  Re-inserting the SIM back to my now fully-charged 3G phone, everything looked normal, address bar is full and shows I am connected to AT&T network...  It looked so normal and typical I didn't even check - but it actually is not working.  I didn't even realize it was not working until I got an email: "...I've been calling you for a couple of days and your phone is not working..."  I checked: it can't receive and it can't make calls while externally everything looked normal.  It took a call to AT&T to re-enable my regular 3G phone.

T-Mobile (Business customer is scheduled for Dec 2021, unknown for consumer lines)

Since I didn't particularly like my AT&T's plan, I got a T-Mobile prepaid to check coverage in my area prior to AT&T shut down my 3G phone.  The T-Mobile's SIM worked just fine on my 4G/LTE phone.  I inserted the SIM into my regular 3G to copy some numbers then re-inserting it to the 4G/LTE phone.  Now it wont connect.  Just like before with AT&T, the phone shows full 5 bars and I am on the T-Mobile network, but it actually is not working.  After two calls to tech-support, I did got the T-Mobile SIM re-enabled on my 4G/LTE test phone.

Later, I thought about the reason why the 4G/LTE phone isn't working when they are merely shutting down 3G.  It may be my 4G/LTE phone doesn't support VoLTE and so it would be 3G voice-wise, may be.

So, if the SIM card is switched between phones, be mindful you may run into problems re-inserting back to originally working phone...

firehopper:
my dad is on consumer cellular, and had 3g phone, his 3g phone was set to go dead on june 30th so he had to spend $35 to get a 4g version of the same flip phone.. :( was a pain in the arse to setup, as I hate t9 keyboards!

Rick Law:
I expected that the phones will stop working sooner or later since their schedule was set, that was not the surprise.  What caught me off-guard was: pulling the SIM from my working (compliant till sometime in 2022) phone and insert it into another phone (compliant till sometime in 2022) stops the SIM from working again -- even when placed back into the phone that was working with the SIM moments ago.

This is different than what happened during the moved from 2G->3G.  I was swapping SIMs back and forth a lot while shopping for replacements phones.  The SIMs continue to function swapping back and forth during replacement shopping, and during migration.

That I cannot swap SIM back and forth added just a minor inconvenient.  That it caught me off-guard was the major annoyance.  The need to fight with robo-phone support multiple times first, then gained the opportunity to explain the issue to a real support person (who doesn't always get it), then needing to drive back to the phone store for a new SIM (which was unnecessary - on second failure, I caught on what was wrong and was able to get them to clear the SIM registration rather than driving back to the store for another SIM). 

No one likes fighting with Robo-Phone-Support.  That is why I wrote this post, part ranting, and part print out an "aviod this" sign.

SteveyG:
3G needs some fairly legacy equipment which is probably running out of support. I'd be surprised if there is a large percentage of users that will be affected by this, other than maybe embedded systems or monitoring systems for alarms etc

What's with this recent use of the term "sunset" ??? Strange one.

rsjsouza:
My theory is that the transition between 2G to 3G was smoother/slower as the majority of people offered more resistance to throw away their older phones - nowadays these folks will be outliars in comparison with the overall customer base. Also, internet access probably comprises a much more significant portion of the phone activities itself, thus the move to a newer/faster packet technology would be more palatable.

But I agree the SIM dance is completely stupid.


--- Quote from: SteveyG on July 20, 2021, 09:04:38 am ---What's with this recent use of the term "sunset" ??? Strange one.

--- End quote ---
I have been hearing this word used in this sense for about twenty years. It is just one more way of saying a cold hard truth in a soft way so as to not hurt the feelings of whomever is on the other side of the conversation.  :-//

This video comes to mind:

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