PlayStation Battlefield 3 Servers shutdown ?!?!

Hello everyone

We've got a PS3 slim console, and we used to play Battlefield 3 normally sometime ago. About a year ago we've got PS4, and we switched to Battlefield 4. Now I am back to play PS3 as my bro has the PS4, and I found that the online connection of Battlefield 3 is not functioning at all. Before anybody blames my Internet connection, router, me, my PlayStation account or my console, I would like to note that:
1- We play Battlefield 4 & Call of Duty Black Ops 3 on PS4 on the same Internet connection which we have used to play on PS3.
2- on PS3 I play AceCombat Assault Horizon, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, as well as a few other Call of Duty titles, and the online connection in these games all work normally as it should and used to be.
3- I tried creating another PlayStation account and tried to play, and just the games I mentioned work fine, but the connection of Battlefield 3 is still not working.
4- The game campaign works fine, but only the online features are absent, and they used to work for some years, until a year ago before we had abandoned PS3, and now I am back to play and disappointed.

Here are photos of what I see when try to connect:
1- When I try to connect:
http://i65.tinypic.com/29y4eb9.jpg
2- When I try to access the store:
http://i65.tinypic.com/2rrudn9.jpg
3- When I access the Battlefeed
http://i68.tinypic.com/20j1fug.jpg

Someone suggested that EA might have shutdown the servers, because the game is old. So, my question is whether this is true or not, and if not, then what is the problem here ?!
Especially that I play and enjoy Battlefield, almost exclusively, the other games are played by my friends. 

Thanks in advance

Regards