It's not just the handsets though. It's all the monitoring gear and alarm gear linked to to 2G text alert gateways and the like. Loads of it in the building services industry and the utilities companies. As well as domestic alarms and panic buttons.
Of course the smart meters will be no loss, but all the above going means dead people and ruined infrastructure. And there's lots of it, in hard to reach places that isn't getting replaced on anything less than a 5 year timescale. And that would be bloody tight and expensive I suspect.
Plus 2G coverage is better than 3G/4G, so how much of that monitoring gear won't be able to be upgraded?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
