Cellular IoT in Australia: 2G Is Gone, 3G Is Gone, and Band 28 Is Non-Negotiable

Every cheap dev board still advertises GSM/GPRS/EDGE. In Australia that support is worth nothing, and the variant letter on the part number decides whether the board works at all.
Author

Benedict Thekkel

Published

June 13, 2026

The short version: if you are putting a cellular module in an Australian device in 2026, it must support 4G, and specifically Band 28. Everything else on the datasheet is decoration.

This is one of those areas where the global marketing copy and the local reality have drifted far enough apart to cost you a board.

What is actually still on the air

Generation Status in Australia
2G Gone. Telstra 2016, Optus 2017, Vodafone 2018
3G Gone. Vodafone/TPG January 2024, Telstra and Optus October 2024
4G / 5G What you have
LTE-M (Cat-M1) and NB-IoT The IoT-specific low-power networks, running on the 4G core

The 3G shutdowns are recent enough that a lot of tutorial content, and a lot of product listings, predate them. A module advertising GSM/GPRS/EDGE is advertising 2G, which has been off for the better part of a decade here.

Band 28 (700 MHz) is the one to check. Telstra and Optus lean on it heavily for IoT and for rural and wide-area coverage, because low frequency means better propagation and building penetration. A module without B28 may associate in a city and fail everywhere that matters.

The variant letter is the whole decision

This is the trap that actually catches people. The SIMCom A7670 ships in three regional variants. Same board, same silicon, different LTE bands.

Variant Designed for Band 28 Verdict for Australia
A7670E Europe, SE Asia, South America No, tops out at B20 Do not buy. Flaky to dead here
A7670G Global, widest coverage Yes Safe choice
A7670SA South America, Australia, New Zealand Yes Purpose-built for ANZ

The E is the one most likely to arrive if you click the default listing, because it is the European part and Europe is the bigger market. You will get a board that powers up, registers on nothing useful, and gives you no obvious reason why.

Buy the G or the SA. Never the E.

Picking a tier

T-A7670 R2 T-SIM7670G S3 T-SIM7070G
Network tier 4G LTE Cat-1 4G LTE Cat-1 LTE-M / NB-IoT
Throughput 10 down / 5 up Mbps 10 down / 5 up Mbps tens to hundreds of kbps
Works in Australia Only G or SA, not E Yes, global including B28 Yes, on LTE-M / NB-IoT
Power profile Moderate Moderate Ultra-low, battery friendly
Camera interface No Yes, on the H802 SKU only No
GNSS Optional, pick a “With GPS” SKU Yes Yes
MCU ESP32 (WROVER) ESP32-S3 ESP32
List price $32.89 USD $36.02 USD $29.01 USD
Best for Cheapest general telemetry Camera plus frequent telemetry Battery sensor phoning home

Expect roughly $45-80 AUD landed once shipping and GST are included, and budget separately for antennas and a camera where the board does not include them.

The tier choice is mostly a power question. Cat-1 gives you real bandwidth and moderate consumption; LTE-M and NB-IoT give you years on a battery and barely enough throughput for a sensor reading. Choosing Cat-1 for a battery-powered sensor is the standard mistake in the other direction.

Hardware gotchas worth knowing before you order

  • The microSD card uses IO2 as its chip-select line, which clashes with flashing. Remove the SD card before uploading a sketch, or spend an evening on mysterious upload failures.
  • Battery voltage cannot be read over USB. The battery ADC only works on battery power, so a reading of zero on the bench is expected rather than broken.
  • Solar input wants 4.4 to 6 V. Exceeding it is not a soft failure.
  • GPS is a per-SKU option on the A7670 boards. If you want GNSS, buy a “With GPS” variant; it is not something you enable later.

The decision, compressed

flowchart TD
  A[Cellular device for Australia] --> B{Battery powered<br/>for years?}
  B -- yes --> C[LTE-M / NB-IoT<br/>T-SIM7070G]
  B -- no --> D{Need a camera?}
  D -- yes --> E[T-SIM7670G S3<br/>H802 SKU]
  D -- no --> F[T-A7670 R2<br/>G or SA variant only]
  C --> G[Confirm Band 28]
  E --> G
  F --> G

Takeaway

Three checks before you spend anything: Band 28 support, the right regional variant, and the network tier matched to your power budget. The 2G support in the marketing copy is not a feature here; it is a sign the listing has not been updated since before the shutdowns.

Full board notes, including links and the per-SKU detail, are in Hardware Tools.

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