French telecoms giant Orange has retired its 2G GSM mobile network.

The shutdown was concluded today (October 20) in the last 43 departments of mainland France where this technology was still operational.

Feature: Is the telecoms industry ready to wave 2G off into the sunset?

Orange had previously announced last year that it would retire the service by the end of 2026.

Rival French telcos Bouygues Telecom and Altice have similar plans to retire their respective 2G networks this year.

The telco started its shutdown last year, kicking off in Réunion, an overseas French territory in the Indian Ocean, before continuing the switch-off in successive phases across mainland France and the French West Indies from March of this year.

"Orange's 2G network is being completely shut down today in the last 43 departments of mainland France where this technology was still operational. This is a major step forward for the security and performance of Orange's networks," said Orange.  

According to the company, the retirement of the 2G network, which launched in the early 1990s, will help reduce the network's electricity consumption. The company cited figures from the French Federation of Telecoms, noting that the transmission of one gigabyte of data over 2G consumes up to 500 times more energy than over 5G.

Orange will reallocate the 5MHz of frequencies dedicated to its modern technologies such as 4G and 5G.

"For several years, Orange has been preparing and informing its residential and business customers to support them in migrating their equipment. Among the measures implemented, voice messages informed users still connected to 2G of the upcoming network shutdown," added Orange.

2G heralded the beginning of the data era and introduced SMS (Short Message Service), something that is probably an afterthought for most people now, given the instant messaging services such as WhatsApp or iMessage that are used.

The technology has been propping up early smart meters and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and M2M services, many of which still rely on 2G for support.

Orange will carry out a similar shutdown for its 3G network in 2028.