Some of Amazon’s older Kindle devices will lose cellular connectivity in the US this year.
This is not Amazon’s work; This is due to the simple fact that US carriers are phasing out 2G and 3G cellular networks starting December this year.
Accordingly The edge, Amazon sent customers an email on Wednesday warning them of the change. I, the owner of an old Kindle Paperwhite, didn’t receive the email – although that’s probably because I don’t live in the United States. Amazon has one too Help document and describes the shift.
Here’s what’s changing. The 1st and 2nd generation Kindle and the 2nd generation Kindle DX – both have no Wi-Fi function, only cellular communications – can no longer connect to the Internet at all after the 2G and 3G networks have been discontinued . While that sounds pretty bad, you can still enjoy the content you already have on the device and upload new content to it using the good ol ‘USB cable.
Kindle Keyboard (3rd Generation), Kindle Touch (4th Generation), Kindle Paperwhite (5th, 6th, and 7th Generation), Kindle Voyage (7th Generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th Generation) all lose cellular connectivity, but you will still be able to connect to the internet via WiFi.
Other Kindle devices are not affected.
There isn’t much you can do to fix this; Upgrading your Kindle’s software won’t help, and the 2G and 3G networks will definitely go away, although each carrier has a different schedule for doing this. AT&T plans to completely end 2G and 3G by February 22, 2022, T-Mobile will do so by April 2022, Sprint will do so in December 2022, and Verizon plans to do so by December 31, 2022. It is unclear why Amazon is saying that Kindles will lose internet access by December 2021 – maybe the company knows more than we do.
In any case, Amazon is doing one thing to alleviate the problem. It offers affected customers $ 50 credit for a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis and $ 15 credit for e-books.
While Amazon’s emails focused on US customers, Kindle owners are becoming all over the world eventually encounter the same problem – and some do. For example, in the UK, Vodaphone plans to shut down its 3G network in late 2022, and Telenor has already started the 3G shutdown process in Sweden (check out a fairly comprehensive list here).