At a time when all the countries across the world are pushing to introduce wide-scale 5G operations, there are people who still use 3G and 2G. This is the reason why telecom operators have not stopped providing 3G and 2G services in India as well. Vodafone is done with 3G though. The news became official when Ather Energy communicated that they are going to be replacing the Vodafone 3G SIM cards from Ather 450 and replace it with BSNL 3G SIM cards. Vodafone had communicated with the company that they are going to stop their 3G services in Bengaluru and Chennai circle from August 27, 2020.
Vodafone Asking Customers to Select 4G as Preferred Network
Tarun, one of the members of the TelecomTalk community forum received a message from Vodafone about the same. Vodafone has been sending SMS to people in Karnataka for upgrading their 3G SIM card to 4G SIM card. The telco is requesting the customers to select 4G as their preferred network type in the network settings of their mobile handset to continue using its services.
There is no clarity from Vodafone on how soon it will be removing all its 3G operations within the whole of India but it is not going to take a lot of time now. As for Ather Energy, they were surprised with the move from Vodafone. They said that they knew Vodafone is going to stop 3G services in some time, but they had no clue that this would happen so fast.
With this SMS from Vodafone and the statement from Ather Energy, it can be assumed that the telco is going to stop its 3G services in the Karnataka circle on August 27, 2020. Since Ather 450 can’t support 4G, they will be swapping the Vodafone SIM cards with the BSNL SIM cards. Thus they will be working out on the swapping procedure now which will take some time. The Ather 450 users can start dropping their vehicles from mid-September to the service centres for the swapping of SIM cards. So until then, all Ather Energy can do is go back to the 2G SIM cards and thus the customers are bound to get a slow experience.
