Organizations Ask FCC to Stop Early T-Mobile 3G Shutdown for 5G Rollout Because It’s Harming Consumers

By B.N. Frank

Earlier this year, T-Mobile was told to stop advertising that their 5G coverage is more reliable. In 2020, the company warned about product liability within weeks of “unleashing” 5G and giving away free phones.

There have been incidents of T-Mobile 5G phones overheating and exploding. Despite this, as well as increasing American 5G opposition and warnings, the company has almost doubled their U.S. coverage (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

T-Mobile has also been exposed for automatically “opting in” their customers for increased ad-targeting. Now it’s being chastised for putting customers in danger by speeding up its 3G “sunset”.

From Fierce Wireless:

T-Mobile’s CDMA shutdown already harms consumers, says coalition

A group of organizations — including the Open Technology Institute at New America and the Rural Wireless Association — sent a letter to Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel yesterday, asking her to intervene in the dispute between T-Mobile and Dish regarding the shutdown of T-Mobile’s 3G CDMA network.

The organizations, which sent their letter collectively under the title “Public Interest Spectrum Coalition” (PISC), want the FCC to exercise its powers to make sure that Boost Mobile prepaid subscribers don’t lose their service at the end of the year.

PISC said the announced CDMA shutdown has already had disruptive impacts. Rural Wireless Association members have reported that T-Mobile’s shutdown of portions of the CDMA network that is now in process has already prevented some rural customers from roaming when they leave their home networks. “Because they are unable to connect to a network, these roaming customers cannot make 911 calls [or] other emergency related calls,” stated PISC.

In late 2020, T-Mobile announced it plans to retire its CDMA network on January 1, 2022. T-Mobile argues that it needs to re-farm the spectrum as it pursues its aggressive 5G buildout.

But Dish is relying on T-Mobile’s CDMA network to serve about half of its 9 million Boost Mobile customers. Dish bought Boost as part of the overall deal for T-Mobile to acquire Sprint and for Dish to become a fourth infrastructure-based wireless carrier in the U.S. Dish was planning to use T-Mobile’s 3G CDMA network until July 2023 while it gets its own network built.

The spat between Dish and T-Mobile has gotten quite heated. Dish claims T-Mobile is deliberately engaging in anticompetitive behavior to hobble Dish’s efforts to compete as a national mobile provider.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect Americans from the telecom industry. The agency has been catering to the industry instead for decades (see 1, 2). This has led to lawsuits being filed against it for NOT protecting the public from unsafe levels of cell phone and WiFi radiation as well as unwanted and unsafe 5G installation on Earth (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) and in space.

Long-time telecom experts, The Irregulators, also filed a lawsuit against the FCC which exposed that Americans have already paid to have safer access to high-speed internet via fiber optics (see also 1, 2, 3, 4). Irregulator Bruce Kushnick has written several articles about why the Department of Justice and State Attorneys need to get involved (see 1, 2, 3).

American opposition to 5G is increasing due to concerns about reduced property value (see 1, 2, 3) and increased energy consumption (see 1, 2) as well as risks to cybersecurity, privacy (see 1, 2), public safety (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), health (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), and the environment.