AT&T Kills Its 2G Network Officially Severing Cellular Connection for the Original iPhone

It’s official: the original iPhone is dead — at least for those on AT&T’s network.

The carrier announced Monday that it officially shut down its 2G wireless network on Jan. 1 — meaning that 2G-powered phones will no longer receive cellular service. This basically renders the original iPhone, as well as other older phones, effectively obsolete.

Not that we didn’t see it coming. The original iPhone, released in 2007 and discontinued a year later, was already declared obsolete by Apple back in 2013. Additionally, Cupertino’s first flagship has not received any software updates since iOS 3, which rolled out in 2009 — an operating system that has long been abandoned by developers. Original iPhone owners will still, theoretically, be able to use their device on a Wi-Fi network.

AT&T has been planning to pull the plug on 2G for years now, and has been trying to migrate 2G users over to 3G or 4G devices — occasionally at a discount or free of charge, AppleInsider reported. The carrier plans on using the extra bandwidth toward future networks, such as 5G. In the short term, the spectrum will be allocated to expand 4G LTE networks.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone, which was unveiled by Steve Jobs at the 2007 Macworld event. To commemorate the iPhone’s 10th birthday, Apple is expected to release a radically redesigned flagship dubbed the iPhone 8.

The end of 2G seems to have had little effect on owners of the original iPhone, as no complaints have surfaced since Jan. 1, MacRumors reported. That doesn’t mean that the transition hasn’t had side effects, however. For example, the death of 2G has caused some significant problems for the San Francisco transit system, whose arrival and departure time prediction system transferred data via AT&T’s 2G network. The problem could take weeks to solve, according to SFBay.