If you’re sourcing GPS tracking watches in 2026, the network question is no longer optional. Across most of our top markets — the US, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Korea, and large parts of Europe — 2G and 3G have already shut down or are scheduled to within the next 18 months. That means a tracker built around legacy networks won’t connect, won’t push alerts, and won’t bill correctly. It becomes e-waste the moment your end customer turns it on.
This article walks through what we tell every distributor and importer who asks: why 4G is the new default, what to ask suppliers, and the small print that actually moves the needle on field reliability.
The 2G/3G sunset is faster than most procurement teams realize
The networks didn’t end on a Tuesday — they faded. AT&T finished decommissioning 2G in 2017 and 3G in 2022. T-Mobile USA wrapped 3G in 2022 and is unwinding remaining 2G capacity. Telstra (Australia), Optus, Singtel, NTT Docomo, KT (Korea), Vodafone Germany, and Swisscom have all either completed or scheduled retirements that land before the end of 2026. Even where 2G/3G technically remains, the spectrum is being repurposed for 4G/5G, leaving legacy devices with intermittent coverage and dropped sessions.
For a tracking watch — where the entire value proposition is that someone receives an SOS or geofence alert in real time — intermittent isn’t acceptable.
What “4G LTE” actually means for a tracker
Not all 4G is created equal. The category that matters for tracking watches is LTE Cat-1 (or Cat-1 bis). It’s a low-power, low-bandwidth profile designed for IoT-class devices: enough throughput for voice, GPS reporting, and small media (a remote photo capture), but not so much that it burns through a 760mAh battery in a day. Cat-M and NB-IoT are even lower-power, but coverage outside North America is still spotty for moving devices.
The A9 platform standardizes on Cat-1, which gives us a usable balance: 300+ hours standby with frequent location reports, voice calling without dropouts, and global carrier compatibility for the price.
What to ask before you order
Before signing a PO with any tracking watch supplier, get clear answers on five things:
- Banding for your target market. “4G certified” without specifying bands is meaningless. EU partners need B1/B3/B7/B8/B20/B28A at minimum. US needs B2/B4/B12/B13. Brazil needs B28A. Confirm in writing.
- Carrier acceptance testing. Some carriers (notably Verizon and certain EU MNOs) require devices to be on their accepted-device list. Ask whether the supplier can run carrier acceptance for your batch and what the lead time looks like.
- Voice calling profile. VoLTE is becoming required as legacy CSFB falls away. Confirm the device handles VoLTE registration and graceful fallback.
- APN configuration model. Will firmware support over-the-air APN updates, or is the SIM hard-coded? If you’re shipping to multiple regions on different MVNOs, OTA flexibility saves a lot of grief.
- 2G/3G fallback policy. Some markets still want fallback (rural Eastern Europe, parts of Africa). Others — especially the US — want 2G/3G disabled so the device can’t get stuck searching for a network that doesn’t exist. Be explicit about which firmware variant you want.
Battery vs. reporting cadence: the trade-off nobody talks about
Customers ask for “real-time tracking” and “long battery life.” These directly fight each other. A watch reporting GPS coordinates every 10 seconds drains in under 24 hours. The same watch reporting every 5 minutes lasts a week. The A9’s defaults — 5-minute cadence in motion, hourly when stationary — give about 5 days of typical use, which we’ve found is the right balance for elderly care and asset tracking. Child-safety operators usually want tighter intervals during school hours and looser intervals overnight; we expose that in firmware as a per-account schedule.
If you’re evaluating a supplier and they quote a single battery life number without specifying the reporting cadence, the number is fiction.
How to validate before bulk ordering
We recommend the same workflow we run with our partners:
- Order 10–20 sample units with the firmware variant you intend to ship.
- Insert SIMs from at least two carriers in the target market.
- Field-test for two weeks: indoor, outdoor, in motion, on a vehicle, near a building.
- Pull the telemetry log: how often does the device drop the network? How many SOS alerts arrive on time? What’s the battery curve under your real reporting cadence?
Two weeks of real telemetry is worth more than a year of datasheet promises. If a supplier won’t ship samples or won’t let you see the raw logs, that’s the answer.
A9’s position
The A9 4G GPS Tracking Watch ships with LTE Cat-1, configurable banding, VoLTE, and OTA firmware updates. We support per-region firmware variants and run carrier acceptance for partners ordering 1,000+ units. If you’re sourcing 4G trackers and want a no-BS technical conversation about your specific market, get in touch — we’d rather scope realistically than oversell.