4G S8 to be disconnected with 3G shutdown - here is what you can do

You should take it up with Samsung. They have known for a long time that AT&T was shutting down their 3G network and had all the information they needed to certify that their phone would meet AT&T's post-3G requirements. It's not up to AT&T to make a phone compatible, it's up to the phone's mfr. If they chose not to go thru the certification process and submit that to AT&T then that's on them. AT&T has had a list available for quite some time on which exact phone models would work or not work. You've had plenty of time to do your research and prepare.

Actually no, because I literally did not have any forewarning before literally just today when I got the crap phone along with the text message.

That's unfortunate for you then. It's been public knowledge for a very long time and all over the AT&T Forums. 

Bro i'm not like you 🤣 You got 17k posts 🤣

of course you are aware

At least you have a phone for now and time to look for what you want. As for me, I've been on the AT&T Forums for years so yeah, I do have a lot of posts. Awareness is the key to success.

OMG that is so sad it is funny.

The way ATT handled it, communicating with people, since, as you, @OttoPylot says, they have had a list for a long time, is terrible. They know what phones are attached to their network, they could have VERY EASILY contacted people and said "Listen, we know you have a Samsung S8 that, by specs, looks like it should work after we switchover, but, due to manufacturer's choice at the moment, it won't have the necessary updates. So, we can send you a cheap, but free, substandard phone, so you can connect, or you can buy a new, ready to keep working, phone from us, OR you can get one that meets *THESE* specs that are also on our whitelist".

Did they do that? NOPE! They sent poorly communicated notices, if at all.

1. And to use as an excuses these forums as "awareness"?  Laughable!
   Most people have lives.
2. They are not very well promoted forums, by ATT, so I would say that MANY (most?) don't even know about them.
3. Companies, like ATT, use these forums as cheap support and let people fight for them, and sometimes have employees interact. But, by and large, one cannot be expected to come to these forums for accurate/timely answers/results that the company itself should be doing
4. Samsung, like any hardware OEM, isn't going to want to spend research time/money to fix older things and would have only done a "fix/update" for the S8 (the ones that won't work) if ATT had paid them an appropriate amount. They want to sell new devices.  Surprising, right?  HP does same for printers and other things...just like all HW OEMs.
5. If ATT had been proactive and PROPERLY communicated WELL with their customers who were going to be negatively impacted, they could have leveraged deals with Samsung, like they are doing now, that would likely have been very beneficial for all parties.  What many don't know is that Samsung has trade-up deals themselves...don't need to go through a cell-carrier. ATT could have offered their trade-ups or they could have referred people to Samsung's version of the trade-up, but that is nothing they would want to do (send customer to another company even though that company would have still supplied hardware that was likely to be used with ATT anyway).

I actually harbor no ill-will towards ATT in this debacle. I'm a grown adult who can figure things out, but I also spent way too long in the tech industry when many haven't.  I am LOLing at anyone that thinks telling any aggrieved party that "the information was out there" and "ATT had a whitelist for a long time" are real answers to this.

for real though most of us only come to the forum when we have a problem, we aren't browsing all day. And yes, at least in my case, the notice was EXTREMELY small as it seems the network will shut down any day now, so I didn't even have the CHANCE to buy a phone i actually want to use.

@krishmunn

That's a misrepresentation.  

The AT&T S4 mini and newer will work on at&t.  The oldest S series unlocked is the USA unlocked S8 [Galaxy S81 (G950U)
• Galaxy S8+1(G955U)] 

The Verizon S4 and newer will work on Verizon.   The oldest unlocked Samsung S series that will work on Verizon is the S7.    One year older than the S8 unlocked. 

Until Huawei got banned, Verizon was set to be far ahead of both T-Mobile and AT&T in implementing its 5G Network and a full year ahead shutting off 3g.  Instead between the Huawei ban and covid-19 is now a full year behind at&t. 

@zigafide

Have you taken a look at the AT&T sales page?

You could (still can till Thursday)  pre-ordered the s22 on an unlimited plan with 36 months of payments.

   Your S8, and in fact any Samsung Galaxy class phone, can be traded in for a huge discount over 36 months.

Those phones do not go in the garbage. They are full of valuable raw materials which are recycled. Given the chip shortage used phones are extremely valuable right now.

It's why your old phone is worth $800+ and a three-year commitment.

The pre-order also gets you a storage upgrade. 

@NotChurMama

I have on more than one occasion written how I would have shut down 3-g. And this wasn't it. But AT&T doesn't pay me, and they sure as heck don't listen to me.  (it's not my first complaint)

    However, facts are: 

1.  All US carriers begin talking about the shutdown of 3G as soon as they started advertising 5G. By 2019 5g was becoming a real option. It was news of 5G coupled with the " we are going to shut down 3-g to bring you 5G" that was in advertisements from all three major networks. 

4.  Samsung is not going to spend the time, money, or effort to certify or make functional, phones that are scarcely in use.  AT&T doesn't pay them.  The certification process is up to Samsung to pay to play.  They aren't going to pay for certification for a handful of phones when it can pay for certification for hundreds of thousands or even millions of phones.   It just not economical.

5.  Ummm.  Have you even read the s22 pre-order?  Or any of the trade in deals since 2019?

Other than the requirement of a postpaid unlimited data plan, since 2019 AT&T has been offering trade-in to upgrade for its current customers no new line required.  Not only did customers get the chance to upgrade their phones, AT&T gets a customer tied for 36 months. 

 The deal to the recycler is to reclaim all of these older phones which are full of valuable raw materials that are in the phones.  With the current chip shortage, all of those old phones have a lot more value than you might think.   

In March of 2020 AT&T begin its certification process and at that time had a very small handful of phones that were whitelisted for use after the 3-g shutdown.

In the summer of 2020 AT&T sent out emails to some customers with non-compliant phones notifying people that they were going to need to upgrade their phones in preparation for the 3-g shutdown in 2022. People misunderstood the email to mean that they had to upgrade immediately.  Not only did the customers make a fuss, but it became public knowledge and there were media Outlets who heckled AT&T for jumping the gun and insisting customers had to upgrade in 2020 when they were shutting down 3-g for another 18 months.   AT&T stopped sending out the emails and didn't say another word until March 2021, when they quietly sent out cheap phones. 

In the background, the certification process continued and the list of phones grew.   

Had I been running this circus, I would have made sure that emails went out to everyone with an early deadline, because procrastination is a real thing - December 31 2021.  

   90 days ahead of 12/31,  text messages go out. Send a 60-day text then a 30 day  and then shut them off. 

  Some kind of prepaid discount offer, as there was when 2g was shut off. 

   Then they still would have had two months to deal with the procrastinators. 

But no...