T-Mobile Will Soon Begin LTE Phase-Out

Many of you reading this are likely familiar with the phase-out of 2G and 3G. All three major carriers have now phased out 2G and 3G almost completely, with T-Mobile holding out the longest with their 2G network all the way up to February of this year.

T-Mobile specifically had numerous delays with their phase-outs of these technologies, due to both lagging IOT upgrades in the business sector and due to additional complications surrounding the acquisition of Sprint.

They finally finished the shutdown of those legacy networks, and now T-Mobile is setting their sights on the future by beginning the retirement of LTE.

LTE will be “re-farmed” to 5G

According to a leaked internal document shared with us here at The Mobile Report, T-Mobile will soon begin completely “re-farming” their existing LTE into 5G over the next 2+ years. The document is shown below.

What does this mean? In layman’s terms, current LTE frequencies will be repurposed to now broadcast in 5G. Basically, it’s out with the old and in with the new.

T-Mobile owns a number of spectrum frequencies in the US. Primarily, T-Mobile focuses on two specific frequencies for 5G, which are 600 MHz n71 and 2500 MHz n41. The lower band helps with coverage distance while the mid-band allows for greater speeds.

Over on the LTE side, there are bands 2, 4/66, 12, and some 71. Most of these are still being used for LTE on T-Mobile, but will be eventually used for 5G. Band 2 will become n2, and band 4/66 will become n66.

All of that is a bit complicated, but the simple way to look at it is that over the next few years, there will be less and less LTE coverage and more 5G coverage.

The document goes on to mention that T-Mobile will retain a small 5 MHz-wide channel of LTE across the country. This will be maintained until at least 2035 to accommodate legacy IOT devices, which can range from ATMs to smart infotainment systems in vehicles.

The potential impact for customers

For typical non-business customers, these changes aren’t likely to be a big issue.

5G compatibility has been the standard in smartphones since 2020 or before, and most people are likely daily driving a device that supports it. However, there are a very few number of devices that support 5G that may still be impacted.

For example, both the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and the LG V50 ThinQ support 5G NSA, which requires an LTE and 5G signal to work, but does not support 5G Standalone. This would mean that customers using these devices, or any other device that has this limitation, would likely need to upgrade over the next 2 years.

Then there’s flip phones. Many flip phones in use today only support LTE. In fact, T-Mobile is even selling a TCL flip phone right this second that has no 5G connectivity. These devices will need to be upgraded over the next few years to ones that support 5G.

Another service that would have been impacted by this change was T-Mobile Home Internet. Originally launched in April of 2021, T-Mobile’s 5G Home Internet gateways initially used 5G NSA for its connection.

Only earlier this year did T-Mobile push software updates to their gateways that not only enabled 5G SA, but forced it in some cases. Without that update, these gateways would have been made obsolete over the next few years as LTE gets phased out.

Expected timeline for LTE retirement

The document above is primarily focused on business customers. It’s a way to get businesses prepared well ahead of time for the LTE phase-out. With that said, there are a few key dates to note.

Although no specific date for LTE phase-out is given, the document is clear that the process will begin soon, and take place over the next two years. After this, only a 5 MHz-wide channel of LTE will remain.

This means you can expect most LTE to be gone sometime in 2028. LTE-only devices sticking around after that point will be subject to quite poor network performance. By 2035, which is a whole decade from now, that last sliver of LTE is expected to also disappear.

In January of 2026, business customers will require special exceptions from T-Mobile to activate devices that are LTE-only or 5G NSA-only. It’s possible that standard customers will eventually be restricted from using LTE-only devices at a future date as well, though that isn’t mentioned in the document.

In addition, new business contracts moving forward that promise LTE cannot extend beyond 2035, the expected full shutdown year for the remaining LTE.

Final thoughts

The race to shutdown LTE is happening sooner than most people likely expected. That being said, for most people, it’s probably not a big deal.

If you are still rocking an ancient (by today’s standards) LTE-only phone, or an LTE-only flip phone, you might consider upgrading soon. At the very least, be prepared to upgrade in the future.

This is, of course, the very first indication of any carrier shutting down LTE, and even with this news, there’s still going to be a sliver of it left for another decade, so there’s no reason to panic quite yet.

It will be interesting to see how the LTE phaseout unfolds, not just for T-Mobile but for Verizon and AT&T too.

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