SK Telecom said Monday it has permanently ended its 25-year-old 2G mobile service.

The top mobile carrier here received the go-ahead from the ICT Ministry last month and started to switch off the 2G service in smaller cities including Sejong since July 6. Seoul was the last city that it shut down the service.

Subscribers of SKT’s 2G service in Korea can no longer receive and make calls or send text messages. According to the company a majority of the company’s 2G users -- around 384,000 -- have already switched to 3G or other network services.

Customers who have not switched have to upgrade their network services and change their phone numbers.

SKT said it will offer financial aid to help them migrate. Previous 2G users can choose to receive discounts on their new cellular devices or bills.

The 2G subscribers who have phone numbers starting with 011 and 017 can keep their numbers until June next year.

Meanwhile, the empty bandwidth that 2G network previously occupied will be used for 5G network services, according to the ICT Ministry.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)