I once read an article about an old iPad Mini, one that was slowly dying, and the author’s grudging acceptance of it.
It wasn’t that the iPad was dying, it was that the whole system upon which it depends had broken down. Unlike an old camera, or even an old computer, it required servers from the outside world to function:
A pristine iPad from the same era, forgotten in a storeroom and never touched, would be equally useless. The moment it came online, it would demand to be updated; as soon as it was, it would find itself in the same grim predicament as my device, which has been at work for half a decade.
Digital death is a problem that we haven’t faced up to. If you doubt this, try opening a file you created 10, 20, or even 30 years ago.
While corded phone technology has basically not changed in anyone’s lifetime, mobile phones are not so fortunate. And phones made less than a decade ago, some of them just will not work anymore.
Why? Because the networks on which they depend have been shut down.
The secret life of phones
All phones don’t connect in the same way.
For years, AT&T and T-Mobile in the US used a network called GSM which was totally incompatible with Verizon and Sprint, which used a network called CDMA. You could “unlock” an AT&T phone and use it on T-Mobile or vice versa, but you couldn’t use it on the Verizon network (and vice versa).
These were typically known as “2G” networks.
These days, people are usually familiar with the terms 3G and 4G (and recently, 5G), even if they don’t quite know what they mean. For our purposes, they are different networks that the phones rely on, with different speeds and features available.
And when these networks shut down, phones that rely on them will cease to work.
Networks are shutting down
That’s a problem when much of the non-smartphone stock is older.
For example, the phone I used from 2010 to 2016 was a Samsung t139 (not to be confused with my current t159). It is a 2G phone, running on the T-Mobile network.
I could use that phone today if I wanted. But T-Mobile has plans to shut down its 2G network. They have committed to keeping it up until 2020, but not beyond that.
AT&T has already shut down their 2G network. If I was on the AT&T network with that phone, it would have just stopped working on January 1, 2017.
In some ways, you can hardly blame the networks. It takes a lot to keep a network running, and as people update their devices to support newer and faster networks, the old networks just aren’t as needed.
For reference, here are the dates of sunsetting for the major networks as of the time of writing.2
| Sunset dates | 2G | 3G |
| AT&T | December 31, 2016 | December 31, 2021 |
| T-Mobile | December 31, 2020 | Not announced |
| Verizon | December 31, 2019 | December 31, 2019 |
| Sprint | December 31, 2021 | December 31, 2022 |
Yes, there are already plans to shut down the 3G networks too. Which, I will note, will make my current phone obsolete too. Granted, I’ve got a few years before that happens, but still, it’s something that we need to be aware of.
Granted, just because it’s easier to buy older phones when looking for a non-smartphone, they are still make new ones.
For example, there’s the LG Exalt, which looks pretty sleek to me. There’s also the Nokia 8110, but it’s unclear whether that will work in the US. Kyocera appears to have some phones.
And of course, there’s always the Lightphone.
So while the options aren’t many, there are options. (And I suspect that more 4G feature phones will enter the market shortly, especially as the other networks are phased out.)
I still maintain that you don’t need to buy a smartphone. But I wouldn’t buy a 2G-only phone today. Soon enough, it’s going to be a brick. Just like that iPad you bought years ago.
