T-Mobile reportedly plans to take most of its LTE network offline by 2028

With LTE now well into its second decade of operation — and with 5G now practically the default throughout much of the US — it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that carriers are beginning to plan out the eventual retirement process for 4G. While Verizon and AT&T certainly won’t be far behind, it’s T-Mobile’s strategy we’re hearing about first, as the carrier intends to begin phasing out LTE in as little as two years.

According to a leaked document published by The Mobile Report, T-Mobile is prepping to free up the majority of its used spectrum for 5G over the next two-plus years, with those bands reallocated to 5G Standalone. While there aren’t any specific guidelines here, that two-plus year window points to a 2028 target goal, with the network planning to keep just a single 5MHz LTE channel active for legacy devices. As T-Mobile notes, that could result in bottlenecks for both LTE-only and 5G NSA (Non-Standalone) devices, particularly wearables and legacy hardware from the earliest 5G days.

There are a couple of crucial dates shared here. First, beginning on January 1st, 2026, this document states “LTE or 5G NSA activations will require an exception request and approval from the Network IOU Team.” This point — and the document as a whole — specifically relates to business customers; there’s no word yet on how this could affect consumer-level T-Mobile subscribers. Considering T-Mobile is looking to have its business customers only activate 5G Standalone products beginning next year, though, don’t be surprised if similar restrictions appear.

The second date relates to that final LTE channel, as T-Mobile specifically states it’ll be maintained as an active, albeit degraded, connection until 2035. That means you’ll still be able to use LTE for the next decade or so, but it’ll be more like the legacy experience of using 2G and 3G networks leading up to their retirement.

Most devices from the past few years support 5G Standalone networks, which allows for voice calls to be transmitted via these newer channels, but smartphones from the earliest 5G days still utilized LTE networks for placing calls. There’s no reason to stress over this transition just yet, but if you are rocking a 5G device from, say, 2019 or 2020, you’ll probably want to start considering upgrading over the next 24 months, just out of an abundance of caution. Once T-Mobile begins communicating this information with its general customer base, we’ll have a much better understanding of both the LTE shutdown timeline and all affected devices.

That said, if 3G’s retirement taught us anything, it’s that getting customers to move off an older network can take a lot more work — and a lot more time — than many might think. Don’t be surprised if these estimated windows look a lot different in just a couple of years.