# AT&T shutting down 2G - will all the country's flip phones stop working? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-t-shutting-down-2g-will-all-the-countrys-flip-phones-stop-working/751293 "2016-04-05T21:12:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 12
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-t-shutting-down-2g-will-all-the-countrys-flip-phones-stop-working/751293/12 "2016-04-05T23:12:12Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > Once you move to digital voice is just specialized data. ATT and TMobile are shutting down GSM because it is not as efficient at 3g and 4g. They want to use that bandwidth for their LTE (4g) networks. Both 3g and 4g have standards for how to send voice data. Its confusing to say that GSM will be shut down, as many phones , and there SIM’s or inbuilt equivalent, are "GSM " or GSM compatible, but these phones and SIM’s are also 3G and 4G … which outside the USA , they all use the GSM sim … Some phone companies may have said that their are migrating from CDMA or other 2G, toward “GSM” when they mean toward 3g or 4g… The shutdown will be of the 2G on 850MHz, So in fact some places a 2g phone may still work because the base station for the area can do 2g,3g,4g on a higher frequency… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-t-shutting-down-2g-will-all-the-countrys-flip-phones-stop-working/751293)._