Big network provider set to AXE service in weeks ahead of country-wide change
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A MAJOR network provider is set to start axing a key service within weeks ahead of a country-wide roll out. BT will start contacting its EE business customers "in the coming months" encouraging them to ditch 2G. The network said it would be asking them to sign up to quicker 4G and 5G plans.
![[Hand holding a mobile phone in front of an EE logo.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ryw1ek-man-using-mobile-phone-865792305.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
This comes ahead of BT officially closing its 2G network by 2030. In a note to customers, Howard Watson, chief security and networks officer for BT Group and Kerry Small, chief operating officer for BT Business, said: "Mobile connectivity has come a long way since the early 1990s when the UK launched its first 2G network.
"It was a time long before the first smartphone was invented, before the Premier League launched, and even before the first SMS text message was sent. "But it is a world apart from what we, as a society, now demand from our digital communications. "Today, just 0.1% of all data on our entire EE mobile network is carried over 2G.".
The UK government and all major mobile operators have already agreed to phase-out existing 2G and 3G signals by 2033. The switch off will reduce networks' costs and free up space for better 4G and 5G services as well as future 6G services. EE in fact switched off its 3G network in February last year, meaning those with older phones would have seen their internet drop out.
However, its 2G network has not yet been closed as 2G signals can be used as backups in the case of 4G or 5G networks faltering. Plus, 2G provides voice and text services in rural areas and non-mobile phone devices like energy smart meters rely on it to transmit data.
