The global deployment of cellular services will evolve over the next 5 to 15 years as carriers transition from 2G and 3G networks to 4G LTE and, eventually, 5G. This will necessitate a migration of deployed cellular handsets and impact current and future M2M and IoT devices as well. All customers deploying M2M and IoT devices must be careful to match their plans and expectations to this major change, taking into account the expected operational longevity of devices as well as where their devices and services are deployed. As mentioned above, we believe that adopting modular designs that allow easier change-out of radio modules or SIM cards may be essential to profitable operation and to allowing sales to grow even as technology changes.

Appendix: Spectrum-Efficiency

In his book, “3G, 4G and Beyond: Bringing Networks, Devices and the Web Together” published in 2013, Martin Sauter provides information on the spectrum-efficiency of generations of cellular networks – including GSM and CDMA – from 2G GSM to 4G LTE services using Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas.

Based on Sauter’s work, Figure 1. Theoretical Maximum Spectrum Efficiency, shows the wireless spectrum-efficiency of various older and newer cellular technologies, in “bits/second/Hertz”.

Changing from 2G GPRS (even with a “more-than-usual” number of GSM time-slots) to a 4x4 MIMO antenna in LTE, provides 230 times improvement in spectrum-efficiency.

This allows carriers to support much higher throughput and many more smartphones and handsets in the same, expensive, wireless spectrum. Ultimately, all current deployed cellular spectrum using 2G and 3G will be converted to 4G LTE – and, eventually, 5G – and the process will start anew.

Figure 1. Theoretical Maximum Spectrum Efficiency

Detailed Sunset Information

Sorted by Region, Country, then Carrier.