The 2G/3G Sunset Is Flooding the Market With Used Base Stations — But Thailand Has Already Closed Half the Door: 2G/3G-Only Gear Has Been Banned From Import Since July 2025

Bottom line: ASEAN's 2G/3G sunset is pushing a large volume of base-station equipment into the secondary market, but Thailand has already closed half the door. Three verifiable facts. First, Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has required AIS and True to submit 2G/3G shutdown roadmaps pointing at the third quarter of 2026; the regulator puts the remaining installed base at fewer than 3 million active 2G/3G SIM cards, and the stated driver is cracking down on fake base stations used for scam SMS. Second, Vietnam switches 2G off completely in September 2026 while keeping 3G until 2028 — the region is not moving in step. Third, and most often missed: since 30 June 2025 Thailand has banned the import of telecom equipment that supports only 2G or 3G, and stopped issuing approvals for it. One sentence for buyers: before you buy swap-out BBUs or RRUs, confirm whether the unit is multimode (4G/5G capable) or 2G/3G-only. The first is an asset; the second is scrap metal that cannot enter Thailand.

Supply side: the shutdown calendar dictates what will be available for the next two years. Southeast Asia's sunsets are a staggered timeline, not a single event. Thailand, under regulatory pressure, is pushing 2G/3G toward Q3 2026. Vietnam has been switching 2G off in phases since 2024, reaches zero in September 2026, and runs 3G to 2028. In markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, 3G usage has fallen fast, but 2G has a long tail because of M2M, POS terminals, vehicle tracking and rural coverage. Two consequences follow. One, between 2026 and 2028 a meaningful volume of carrier-grade RAN equipment — 2G/3G boards, early LTE basebands such as the BBU3900 family, and their matching RRUs — will come out of live networks with clean, traceable provenance. Two, residual value here is not depreciation by age; it is priced by how many networks still run that air interface. The moment a shutdown date is published, the price curve for that generation accelerates downward. This is a fundamentally different valuation logic from construction machinery.

Thailand's first checkpoint: 2G/3G-only equipment can no longer enter. In an announcement dated 9 June 2025, the NBTC stopped granting type approval to telecom equipment supporting only 2G or 3G and banned its import as of 30 June 2025. According to several certification bodies and industry reports, multimode equipment that also supports 4G/5G remains eligible for approval, and devices already approved or already operating in-network are unaffected — but confirm that dividing line in writing with the NBTC or a local approval agent for your exact model and board configuration. Do not ship on a seller's verbal assurance that "this one passes." The practical effect on brokered deals is direct: out of the same decommissioned site, multimode BBUs and 4G RRUs can be offered to Thai buyers, while pure 2G/3G boards and antennas need a different destination. The two must be separated at the quotation stage, not after loading.

Thailand's second checkpoint: NBTC type approval is itself a hard gate. Unlike construction machinery, telecom equipment requires NBTC approval to be imported, sold or used in Thailand, via one of three routes — registration (Class A), certification (Class B), or supplier's declaration of conformity (SDoC). It requires test reports from an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory plus a technical dossier, and the application must be filed through a local representative established in Thailand. Typical processing runs about three to five weeks, and the certificate is in principle valid indefinitely as long as the hardware is unchanged, with no annual renewal. For used-equipment buyers there are really only two workable paths: buy models that already hold a valid approval record in Thailand and ride the existing certificate, or import through a licensed local integrator acting as Importer of Record. Never ship a container first and study approval later — telecom equipment stuck in customs costs far more to resolve than machinery does.

So where does pure 2G/3G gear go? To markets still running those air interfaces, and into spares and teardown value. The staggered regional calendar itself creates re-export room: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and parts of South Asia and Africa still carry real traffic on 2G/3G. At the same time, operators keeping a legacy network alive until shutdown day tend to see spare-parts demand for identical boards peak in the twelve to twenty-four months before switch-off. That is the most solid pocket of demand in this trade — the buyers are operators and maintenance contractors, and what they check is that the board model and hardware revision match exactly so the unit can be hot-swapped. Whatever is left eventually goes to precious-metal recovery and component harvesting, priced close to scrap. That is a separate market from working equipment; do not blend the two in one quotation.

Four items for buyers ordering this quarter. One, settle compliance before price: put the model, board-level BOM and multimode status into the enquiry, confirm the Thai approval route, and only then negotiate cost. Two, inspect software as well as hardware — nameplate and serial number, board model and hardware revision, whether licences are included and transferable, network-management and baseband software versions, and whether the DC power modules and transmission interfaces are complete. "Working" depends far more on software and licensing here than it does with machinery; one missing licence turns a unit into a shell that cannot be commissioned. Three, write NBTC compliance responsibility and the return terms for non-compliance into the contract; do not assume the seller carries it. Four, on timing: the twelve to twenty-four months before shutdown are simultaneously the peak for spare-parts demand and the steepest decline in residual value for whole decommissioned sites. Buy spares early, buy site equipment late — the optimal timing for the two is opposite.

Sources (all public material; please verify independently): Thailand's 2G/3G shutdown roadmap and the figure of fewer than 3 million active SIMs are reported by the Bangkok Post and summarised at developingtelecoms.com. The NBTC's halt on type approval and import of 2G/3G-only equipment from 30 June 2025 appears in the NBTC announcement dated 9 June 2025 and in compliance notes from cetecomadvanced.com, gma.caict.ac.cn (CAICT global market access) and baclcorp.com. The point that multimode devices remain approvable comes from industry reporting — confirm it per model with nbtc.go.th or a local approval agent. NBTC approval classes, ISO 17025 testing, the local-representative requirement and the three-to-five-week timeline are set out in public guides from nemko.com, micomlabs.com and ib-lenhardt.com. Vietnam's complete 2G shutdown in September 2026 and 3G retention to 2028 come from Omdia's analysis of Southeast Asia's 3G sunset (omdia.tech.informa.com). Policies and timelines are point-in-time; check the current official position before you order.