Both companies said the bandwidth freed up would be used by newer technologies.
Cosmote, part of OTE and ultimately controlled by Deutsche Telekom, said it will begin phasing out 3G networks from September, and said the switch-off will be complete by the end of the year.
The spectrum will be used for 4G, which is already covering 99% of the population, and 5G, which will have 50% coverage in population terms by the end of 2021.
However Cosmote will retain its 2G network for voice and text services
Swisscom (pictured), however, has no reservations about switching off its 2G network, launched in 1993.
A Swisscom spokesperson said: “The technology was geared to the applications used at the time, such as making calls or sending SMS text messages.”
She added: “The proportion of traffic transmitted via 2G fell steadily and was less than 0.03% by the end of 2020.”
The company started to remove the last remaining 2G devices from the network at the start of the year, and now it has finally switched off the 2G technology.”
Swisscom said it offers its customers a mix of attractive access technologies: low power network as well as LTE-M and narrow band-IoT (NB-IoT) are both dedicated and state-of-the-art technologies based on 4G for the internet of things (IoT). NB-IoT is specially designed for massive IoT, and LTE-M for critical IoT, noted Swisscom.
