• With the fully-fledged 5G era still not quite with us, earlier generations of mobile technology are getting an extended lease of life in Europe
• While many 3G networks are being decommissioned, 2G continues to play a vital role
• Reliance on old tech is most marked in Eastern and Central Europe, but it’s important in the West too
• French firms make elevator pitch to retain 2G and 3G

Europe’s telcos continue to tell anyone who’ll listen that the 5G era is upon us, even though, to date, consumer 5G hasn’t lived up to its hype. While further investments in 5G standalone and other updates continue in the hope of achieving the elusive 5G upturn, some of Europe’s legacy 3G and even 2G networks continue to play a major role in Europe’s telecom sector as many users are still highly reliant on the old technologies. 

Thus, the region’s telcos find themselves on the horns of yet another dilemma as they try to balance the shutdown of networks that must remain in everyday use whilst simultaneously struggling to replace them without causing major service disruptions and outages that would attract opprobrium from all sides.

A new report, Europe’s legacy networks: 3G and 2G still matter in the age of 5G, from Boston, US-headquartered analytics firm Opensignal (the self-styled specialist in “quantifying the mobile-network experience”), takes a detailed look at continuing reliance on 3G and 2G across various European markets and the problems inherent to the transition away from them. 

Europe is in the global vanguard when it comes to this critical transition, accounting for 52.6% of all 2G and 3G switch-offs around the world that have either been completed, are in progress, or are planned, and the report focuses first on the shutting down of 3G services in the UK, analyses how those actions impacted users, and looks at operator strategies more generally.

In the UK, both EE (part of BT Group) and Vodafone have already decommissioned their 3G networks, while Three, now in process of merging with Vodafone UK, was part way through  the decommissioning of its 3G assets before being acquired. One result of the changes has been that Vodafone UK’s 3G shutdown has caused a greater usage of the residual 2G network rather than an upswing in 4G uptake as 3G services were removed.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Nordic countries lead the move away from 3G and 2G, with subscribers in Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and the (definitely not-Nordic) Netherlands spending the least time on 2G or 3G connections. However, only this week KPN, the national telco of the Netherlands, announced that “in order to ensure continuity” of connectivity and to give consumers and businesses more time to make the switch from 2G to 4G and 5G technologies, it will delay the planned 2025 shuttering of 2G services, conceding that although the number of 2G users has declined rapidly in recent years there is still a relatively large group of active users who continue to require access to the 2G service. As a result, KPN now plans to switch off its 2G network at the end of December 2027. KPN has already decommissioned all 3G services.

Meanwhile, users in France, Germany, the UK and Austria are also spending less time on legacy networks as reliance on 2G and 3G networks dwindles at a slightly lower rate. At the other end of the scale, users in Moldova spend the most time on 2G or 3G, followed by those in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malta and Albania, while  subscribers in Luxembourg, of all places, spend the most time just on 2G, followed by those in Greece and Czechia.

As the Opensignal report points out, subscribers still reliant on legacy 2G and 3G networks, of course, miss out on the superior experiences afforded by 4G and 5G technologies while, at the same time, operators and service providers have to continue to rely on technologies that are, by definition, less efficient 2G and 3G spectrum. Furthermore, the deployment and use of 4G and 5G technologies both reduce a telco’s operating expenses and greatly improve energy efficiency, whilst burnishing their green credentials. However, in many areas across Europe, the transition to them is slower than expected. 

Roadmap for transition from 2G/3G to 4G and 5G taking many years to navigate

In practice, the decision about which legacy technology to shut down is usually contingent on the needs of an operator’s enterprise customers, and particularly those continuing to rely on 2G or 3G services to maintain the continued operation of IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as smart meters. Other factors that impinge on an operator’s decision to phase out a cellular technology at any particular time include: their the proven reliability of coverage in rural and remote areas: spectrum licenses held for particular mobile technologies (and how much longer they have to run); and the age and utility of the equipment in use and the level of investment that has been made in each technology and to what extent it has been amortised on an annual accounting basis.

A further factor is the provision of legacy circuit-switched voice services, which are required to be maintained for devices that do not support Voice over LTE (VoLTE), although there are relatively few of them. Of course, the closing down of both 2G and 3G stops the devices from making calls and this can put operators in breach of regulatory duties and obligations.

The typical roadmap to be followed by operators when shutting down a legacy network usually takes place over a period of at least several years and involves common measures including regulators and governments prohibiting the sale or import of 3G-only devices, withdrawing the sale of 3G-only devices, SIM cards and packages, whilst encouraging those currently on them to move to 4G-capable versions.

Also required is the build-up of additional 4G and 5G coverage in areas currently served by the technology that is to be discontinued. Other, further, steps include working with business customers to migrate/upgrade/replace their devices and liaising with other stakeholders such as suppliers and emergency services, which can be complex and time-consuming.

Then, once reliance on the legacy technology has fallen to what is an undefined “acceptable level”, an operator can start shutting down the network. Many operators do so on a region-by-region basis to give them more time to roll out 4G or 5G coverage in those that are lagging behind and operators often repurpose much of the spectrum used to support legacy technologies prior to shutting them down.

As the Opensignal report has it, “3G across Europe… tends to be sunset first. Our analysis reveals that, on average, our European mobile users spend 3.9% of their time connected to 3G networks although there is considerable variation between countries and operators.” 

Thus, users in Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to rely heavily on 3G services while subscribers in other countries, such as Norway and Finland spend almost no time at all on 3G networks, which is hardly surprising given that the technology is at the point of total shutdown.

The report shows that 17.6% of users in Moldova continue to rely on 3G connectivity whilst 9.9% of Slovakian subscribers rely on 2G. Again, surprisingly, an average of 8.1% of French users still spend time on 3G and the country is the only European member of the G7 group of countries that continues to rely on 3G to such an extent. The Opensignal report says this is because about 25% of subscribers to just one operator, Iliad’s Free Mobile, are not yet on 4G or 5G.

By a strange quirk, more than 50% of all lifts – or ‘elevators’, if you adhere to the North American name for the ubiquitous vertical transportation machines – in France rely on 2G and 3G services to keep them running. Because the elevator industry there is “not yet ready” to swap out the old technology for newer versions, the apparently powerful French Elevator Federation has persuaded the government to delay the shutdown of 2G and 3G services for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, some people would have been forced to slog their way on foot up the 59 stories of the Tour Montparnasse in Paris. 

In conclusion, and despite all the transformations that are in train, the reality is that at the end of 2024, European users still spend an average of 5.5% of their time connected to 2G or 3G networks.