Somewhat more than a year ago I bought a new phone then I got a message to upgrade but the upgrade got paused and I haven't got around to looking into it yet.
Good for you. Life is better without today's smart phone. I have a little flip phone that stays turned off in a signal blocking case in my purse. I get it out when I need to use a phone when away from home. My average monthly usage is 4 minutes.
I did upgrade it on Dec 27 2021. However, on Jan 3rd (one week) I dropped that phone next to our truck, we drove over it with a trailer that has roughly 8,000 lbs on it. This cracked the screen on just one side. Thankfully, I did purchase the insurance for $6 a month. So it was covered and they have replaced the phone (they upgraded it again....cracked phone was a Samsung A12....they replaced it with a Samsung A32 5G) So after I go to the phone store to activate it....Today will be my lastest upgrade.
I'm going to have to change my portable 'phone at some time in the next year, here in the UK, but when is another matter.
The 'phone companies and government have agreed to switch off the 3G system before 2033, but not exactly when, so it will probably something of a patchy transition.
I only hope I am not going to forced to buy an expensive "smart"-'phone and costly contract!
It's not only telephones though.
It will affect instruments like the Kindle, and more seriously in the UK, so-called "smart" utility meters, for gas and electricity.
These measure consumption and use integral radio-telephones to transmit the readings to the utility company's customer-accounts department. The justification was one you might expect from politicians who probably don't know an ampere from a volt: it will help you economise on your electricity and gas use by showing your consumption of them. You could determine that anyway from the conventional meter. At the moment you can have these set to read every month or more (I think mine is quarterly) but there is a proposal to make them half-hourly in a vague attempt to even the load on the National Grid.
If I knew then what I know now I would have refused to have "smart" meters, but opted for them because the Government was waffling about making them compulsory for everyone in due course. They are not, I now know, for existing homes; but I think they are for newly-built ones. Unfortunately, it seems you are not allowed to have them reverted.
So if the hundreds of thousands now in use are all 3G.... That would be one hell of an operation to change them all over the next few years. At whose expense, I wonder?
Shuhak 