AT&T phased out its 3G network earlier this week “to invest in 5G and improve its network.” Along with the move, some in-vehicle functions were nixed and collision repair centers may also be facing issues.

According to CNBC, updates, remote communications, emergency, and convenience features will no longer work in Tesla, Audi, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, and Stellantis vehicles – as new as the 2021 model year – operating on 3G. On the repairer side of the coin, AirPro Diagnostics Automotive Technology Solutions Senior Vice President Chuck Olsen told Repairer Driven News some shops – more on the mechanical side with programming – will be affected.

“Shops that do have older [data] plans on the older networks will probably need to upgrade for a multitude of reasons – for their own communications and also being able to utilize remote services,” he said. “One of the challenges that shops will have is if they are doing a programming event in-house, especially with a remote service. The 3G isn’t going to support that going forward.”

AirPro remote diagnostics likely won’t be greatly impacted because they use WiFi for their operations. Collision repairers, on the other hand, will experience slower internet speeds, especially with photo estimates because of upload and download speeds, Olsen said. Electronic invoicing is another function that would be impacted.

Business Development Vice President Bob Augustine said Opus IVS uses 4G LTE and WiFi to connect to their devices at shops so “for the foreseeable future” their services won’t be affected.