2G is not dead — or the many ways of phasing it out.

This was written in reply to a post on Slashdot about the possibility of future 2G phaseouts around the world.

Developing economies, like Venezuela, are very unlikely to shut down 2G and 3G networks even in the long term. Venezuela in particular is also unlikely to introduce 5G within the next five years.

Venezuela was once a rich economy pursuant to its extensive oil wealth, but unfortunately, did not become an advanced economy, as the country did not diversify its economy, and let the generation of any form of local produce atrophy. Calling the country's sad state a 'developing economy' is at best generous, or aspirational.

wrt 2G and 3G, Africa and South Asia are just as unlikely to phase these technologies out; though 5G is likely to be introduced in some markets, after 5G implementations in Northern Europe will be rated stable. 5G was launched on 27 June 2018 in Finland and Estonia.

The situation with mobile tech adoption in India is mixed. On one hand, Reliance have switched 2G off, and their subsidiary Jio has 4G from the outset. On the other hand, Airtel have not shut their 2G network down, and I can imagine, that there may be smaller mobile providers that still offer 2G service.

Countries with large 2G-only and 3G-only userbases are unlikely to shut these networks off anytime soon, and will opt for a gradual migration.

Some of the reasons in favour of gradual migration:

* Late adoption of new technologies owing to reasons economic, or geographical: 3G was never implemented until very recently; so, the entire mobile network is based on 2G (GSM), and a large amount (if not most) people have 2G-only phones. Wealthier subscribers may have phones that support 3G, but are unable to use the technology because of non-existent infrastructure;
* 2G and 3G have become plain utilities akin to landline phones, and can therefore be harder to phase out for their entrenched status, since:

* many of their subscribers might not be able to afford anything else;
* upgrading would increase the rate of planned obsolescence (lots of useless handsets); and
* would add to large amounts of electronic waste
— despite being labeled a legacy technology.

* Countries, where the 2G/3G adoption ratio per population is small (percentage-wise), can afford to upgrade faster.

* Countries, where 2G/3G adoption is perhaps in single digits, can choose to:
** adopt 2G/3G either to quickly get more subscribers for less;
** or where there is no 2G/3G in the first place, said countries can leapfrog existing standards, and implement 4G from the outset, but with the downside, that not all people will be able to afford mobile telephony until the market is reasonably saturated, as newer technologies are also more expensive. Nepal is one of those.
* Operators in very large and very wealthy economies have both monetary and security incentives to upgrade, and most of their userbase is probably using 3G devices at the very least (think lots of iPhones with at least iPhone 3G). The United States and Australia are examples of this upgrade model.

A historical example with the quick phaseout of 1G in favour of the 2G GSM:
In Estonia, the 1G NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone) network was launched in 1991, and sunset in December 2000. In a country of 1.3 million, the greatest amount of NMT subscribers at EMT (then a major operator; now Telia) was about 19,000. By early 2000, the number of subscribers was 9600. And by December 2000, there were only 351 hold-outs left, after EMT announced in May that year, that they were going to shut the NMT network down in that same month of December. NMT was then still working in Finland, Sweden, and Russia.^{[Source: Ärileht, 11.12.2000]}

Reasons for the shutdown of NMT in Estonia were the overall low and declining subscriber numbers, and the legacy status of the analogue 1G NMT network, which, compared to GSM, was not secure.

In time, 2G/GSM has in Estonia become an entrenched technology, relied on by people who choose to have a featurephone because of its high reliability, or because they're unable to afford a smartphone (pensioners). In 2016, Telia (then Elion) turned off WAP. The status of 2G in Estonia is similar to the rest of Europe: Despite the reasonably early adoption of 3G, GSM remains widespread, is in some ways entrenched, and operators have chosen a softly-softly approach with gradual migration.

The approach taken in Pakistan is different to that of India. In Pakistan, 3G and 4G were launched on 23 April 2014, which is quite late compared to China and the Philippines (both 2008). While four years ago may seem like a long time, then it really isn't. This late adoption of 3G and 4G means, that the number of GSM-only subscribers with 2G-only phones is still substantial.

That GSM is entrenched in such a way, is not a bad thing. It could be called 'deep adoption', which means, that the service is essential, widespread, and available to most everyone. Especially, when landlines are scarce. GSM was the first mobile standard adopted worldwide, and joining and using a GSM network is affordable to a very large number of people. GSM is like a well-managed regional bus service: One could use it to travel across the country, but not quickly. Removing it in the absence of viable alternatives would substantially reduce the level of development in the country, and would reduce its inhabitants' quality of life.

3G and 4G are faster: 3G is like inter-city bus service, and 4G like a high-speed express train. Neither is essential, not all territories are covered by it, but they have their uses and customers.

Other parallels: Radio is like 0G; analogue tv = 1G; DVB-T (digital terrestrial tv) = 2G (MPEG-2 or 4, non-HD); DVB-T2 = 3G (with full support for Full-HD broadcasts in MPEG-4); and cable tv (based on IPtv) is like 4G.