Talk:3G

The difference between EDGE and 3G...

...is what exactly? Are they the same, or not? If not, which is preferable, and which gives the better results?

As too many others have detailed, this article is so bemused as to be completely meaningless, perhaps even an information-free zone. Lose most of the tech-talk, and do what encyclopedias are supposed to do, explain in English. 203.161.102.82 (talk) 09:45, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Bolding

I've removed some bolding. Does Wikipedia's style actually dictate the bolding? Dannman (talk) 21:14, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

3g shut down

we should mention that Cellular network providers are discontinuing 3g services in a large number of developed countries, these being Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Tiwan, United States. European Providers are also shutting down 3g Some links are below

• https://www.digi.com/blog/upcoming-2g-and-3g-global-cellular-network-sunset-dates/
• https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Australian-3G-network-shutdown-what-you-need-to-know
• https://nae.global/en/the-status-of-the-2g-3g-network-sunset/ All hail Armok (talk) 03:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@All hail Armok I'd like to add a section with 3G shutdown the same way it's done on the 2G page. I hesitate in putting it here or on UMTS Networks P'tit cali (talk) 08:53, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

3G shutdown table

I have a few gripes:

• I didn't add the Canadian dates because there was no concrete source attached to it. A few websites have it but don't provide a good source or any statement from these companies. Just a date.
• I changed China Mobile to 2020 because the most recent source says that it would shut down by 2020. The source saying since 2016 is older. The German dates had newer sources as well, until you removed them. Telia Lithuania says by Christmas 2022 it will shut down 3G. The older version has an incorrect date of the 31st.
• The South Korean section is LITERALLY ABOUT 2G, NOT 3G. Don't believe me? The source for KT literally says "Terminating 2G service". The LG article also talks about 2G, not 3G. So does SK Telecom, which the source literally says "to support their transition to the telco’s more advanced networks (3G/4G/5G)". It implies that 3G networks are still going for now. The "2G is actually 3G in South Korea" claim has no source and isn't supported by the sources in question.
• Asia Pacific Telecom under Taiwan has no source at all. The Taiwan source also doesn't name any cell companies directly.
• Liberty Puerto Rico is an MVNO. It doesn't run its own network (I'm pretty sure it just uses AT&T's), it shouldn't be there. 2601:901:4300:1CF0:928B:61C3:40AC:EE08 (talk) 00:40, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

So I feel like you didn't "update" anything. You just reverted to older sources. Some of that content was removed for a good reason. 2601:901:4300:1CF0:928B:61C3:40AC:EE08 (talk) 00:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@Joshuarshah, @Wizzito what happened? Has there been an intervention from the administrative side? The two recent reverts I've been notified about seem to have vanished. However the above is totally nonsense. All points can be verified and therefore were present in the list for a long time without any second guess by anyone though several contributors interacted in the meanwhile. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 07:04, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Nonsense? It's not nonsense (this was me editing as an IP). I have valid concerns about your reversion; I was merging the two tables together; I made a duplicate table accidentally, but my table had some stuff not in the older table and vice versa, so I merged the two, adding the new information from my table and the information that was present in the old table not present in my table (if that makes sense). No administrative action has happened. wizzito | say hello! 07:07, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Stuff can also be false or wrong or out of date but still stay in an article... see the entries on WP:HOAXLIST for a similar example. wizzito | say hello! 07:09, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

You were inadvertently restoring the older version of the table with older information and some false information (e.g. 2G shutdowns in a 3G shutdown table). I would restore my table but WP:3RR has been broken at this point. wizzito | say hello! 07:10, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah i'm not sure what happened here. Joshua Shah (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

No, this was definitely not in inadvertently. It is a matter of fact that a whole bunch of information vanished without any reason since 06 Mar 2022 in a sequence of obviously unorganised an chaotic edits - and that is definitely not in common interest. If there are additional sources they can simply be added (if needed) to prove additional content. Further we have tools like templates to mark content that is put into question regarding specific verifiability of details. It is also no harm if original sources vanish over time and thus become archived automatically. So against this background I clearly request to quit any further destructive approaches and instead use this talk-page for discussions with other editors to achieve common sense. Thank You. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 07:42, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Nothing "vanished". I merged the original table and my duplicate together. I explained what I removed during that merge and why. I feel as if your behavior is not in good faith and that you are trying to take ownership of the article by reinstating a table that I have already stated is incorrect in some parts. I will be posting at ANI next. wizzito | say hello! 07:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Korea dates and 2G/3G dispute

I'm not going to wade into an edit war, but I'm going to post here what I think, and hopefully it can be thrashed out.

It seems to me that the '2G' networks referenced in the sources in question are/were, from the point of view of western uses of the terminology, somewhat of a hybrid. One source even notes that such 2G networks started in 1996 (Herald). Given that 3G networks are still being run after these 2G-with-some-3G-tech networks were shut down, describing these as 3G shutdowns seems misleading, verging on the disingenuous, or seriously misguided.

I note that the technology in question, while considered 3G, was also used because it was backwards compatible with some 2/2.5G standards, which supports the idea that this isn't a true 3G network, but an upgraded 2G one.

The commentary in the notes column for KT and for SK Telecom look an awful lot like WP:OR, and I will probably tag them as such shortly.

The information being in the table might be useful, with sufficient caveats, but it would be more useful to have information, if any exists, on future shutdowns of pure-3G networks in South Korea. SamBC(talk) 15:31, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@SamBC: I tried to make it more clear by adding additional sources to the network-listings for South Korea. What is correct indeed is, that these networks started as cdmaOne (2G) networks which were upgraded to CDMA2000 1xRTT & EVDO (3G) [commonly defined as 3G technology by ITU and the related 3GPP2 project group] somewhen around the year 2000. Within Korea the term "2G" for these network however remained, also to help distinguish these from the newer UMTS-technology-based 3G networks launched by KT and SKT later on (somehow this appears reasonable but is technically incorrect when referring to the technical standards). As to my knowledge, there is no announced shutdown date for these newer UMTS networks yet, but as soon there is they shall be listed here as well.

This is all the background I can give from my research during the recent years, as I have been following this topic for quite a long time already (as can be seen from my public edit history) and deal with this field in my professional experience as well. So far I have found myself able and always welcome to share such kind of information throughout several related wiki-articles and -tables I do contribute to regularly on this platform. To me this appeared an useful thing to do. The actual edit dispute, in which I find myself involved, does not fit into that picture really. The correct and verifiable information (which may also be older, if still correct) should always be in the focus and not the editor himself whoever this may be in general. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 17:38, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@Nightwalker-87 I don't express doubt as to whether you are correct or not; it's just that there's no source given for the "2G means 2.5-3G and differentiates it from other 3G" statement, which makes it look like WP:OR; as you say you know this from professional experience and your own research, but we need a reliable, independent source making that conclusion in order to read the sources as other than what they appear to say. SamBC(talk) 17:58, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@SamBC: That was actually the intention why I've added additional sources which prove the presence of CDMA2000 1xRTT & EVDO upgrades for these networks. That both are 3G technologies does not really need another verification, one can find this in the respective wikipedia article already. The only way I see here is to keep both types of sources the technical evidence and the shutdown notice using the "2G" mentioning. Both clearly refer to the same networks and are both correct. Thus we'd have to deal with it. I doubt that we will be able to find a source that states just the given explanation in the context of WP:NOR. From my edit experience on the topic I also find that it is (unfortunately) not always possible to achieve a full level of verifiability for every detail though one does (should) strive for it. It's a matter of fact that has do be dealt with in the sense of WP:VER & WP:CS, however in the consequence that some additional insight or logical interpretation based on the available, sourced information may be necessary to reflect the actual state or fact. This is still better than missing information or, even worse, wrong information. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 00:15, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

@Nightwalker-87 But taking those two together and coming to a conclusion is improper synthesis; you need a source for the conclusion, not just the data that leads to the conclusion. SamBC(talk) 10:56, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

A bit late, but I'd like to settle the disputes as well. I personally agree with SamBC's statement of it being improper synthesis. Somewhat more off-topic, but I just did some date updates and unbolded dates which have already passed (e.g. one of the Hungarian providers, Sri Lanka). wizzito | say hello! 01:40, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

There are also some dates that appear disputed, e.g. Canada; Pat Wilbur of the Forbes Technology Council states that it will shut down in Canada by the end of this year, but the company Northern Business Intelligence gives a date of December 2025. What should we do about situations like that? wizzito | say hello! 01:52, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Nightwalker-87 trying to touch base with you again, see my comments above. I have a table that I made in my sandbox; can you please tell me your thoughts? There's a lot of newer updates there not in the main article's table. wizzito | say hello! 03:20, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Wizzito Thank you for coming back to this topic. I finally found some time to give you some feedback on that page and hope that it may be helpful to proceed. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 12:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Title of shutdown table

Given that the table contains a lot of networks that, per its own information, are current networks, it seems strange that it is titled "past 3G networks". Joshuarshah (talk · contribs) is repeatedly reverting it to that title. I think it is appropriate to discuss this, rather than engage in further reversion - or at least for such changes to be explained in the revision comment, as in most recent such change. I do note that this (misleading, factually incorrect) title is consistent with other pages on mobile phone tech generations, but that doesn't make it right - and if it should be made clearer, then this is as good a place as any to do it first.

Alternatively, keep that title, add another section for networks due to shut down, and split the table. Either is possible, and preferable to having a table described as "past networks" that contains a great deal of current, live networks. SamBC(talk) 21:43, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Extensive coverage of networks with (sometimes very vague) shutdown announcements seems to violate WP:NOT & WP:TOOMUCH from my point of view. This should be limited to notable deployments as per WP:NOTE and/or/else limited to a timeframe covering the upcoming 1-2 years at a maximum. Also a fixed date should be available. In such a context the current title should be fine. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 15:48, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Bouygues Telecom (France) 2G and 3G shutdown

bouygues will shut down GSM end 2026 and UMTS end 2029 https://www.igen.fr/telecoms/2023/02/bouygues-telecom-coupera-la-2g-en-2026-et-la-3g-en-2029-135249 Adhame95 (talk) 00:11, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I've received the news already and will update the list soon. Thanks. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 14:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Dates in shutdown table

@Nightwalker-87: Greetings! Regarding this revert...

• I don't think it's necessary, but I don't mind the use of red if the intent is to highlight future shutdowns. The problem is that on some rows, dates in the past are highlighted. (Which points out that if no one remembers to update this chart each time a planned shutdown date is reached, the colorization is going to be incorrect, so that seems like a reason to leave it off.)
• Adding "since" before the date is redundant; it means the same thing as just noting the shutdown date. It also breaks the sort order for this column.
• Adding "<" or ">" before the year seems to be misleading? I read "> 2024" as "after 2024", but from what I could tell from cited sources it was being used to mean "late 2024". Given the actual date is uncertain, we can just write "2024" to avoid breaking sorting, and if desired mention that it's late in the year in the notes column. Or just wait to be more specific until a more firm date is announced.

-- Beland (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi Beland. Thanks for opening this topic. Unfortunately I haven't found time yet to reply to the single points, but will do soon. Please give me some more time. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 23:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello Beland. Thanks for being patient. I do WP:AGF here. So let's have a look at your remarks:

1) Yes, this is indeed the intention of highlighting these entries. In the past we've only kept entries in red colour, if we could not verify that the shutdown has really taken place. (WP:VER), so we try to find additional sources. So this is actually not "forgotten" as it may seem.

2) Some operators process a gradual shutdown in certain regions instead of shutting down a whole network at once. This is what we denote with "since" while this process is ongoing. As soon as it came to an end, we do change the date to the final shutdown date.

3) Yes, you did understand that correctly. I don' really mind if we can improve sorting here. So far it was common practise to set "end of year" to the 31st of December, unless noted otherwise by official sources.

The same scheme should apply to the shutdown table in 2G actually.

I hope to have made this more clear to you now. Please let me know if you have any further ideas to improve the sorting. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

@Nightwalker-87: For (3), I have just dropped "<" and ">" from the table.

For (2), it's misleading to mix shutdown start and end dates in the same column. I don't mind if there are both start and end dates, but the start dates would be missing for all the providers that have completed their shutdown. It's also unclear if some providers started decommissioning in underused areas without making an announcement? Or is that required or expected? For now, I'll move the start dates into the "notes column". Feel free to make a separate column if you like.

For (1), if red means "in the future unless actually confirmed", there's no way for readers to know that unless it's explained. It also seems rather complicated. Maybe for clarity we could write something like "2023-05 (scheduled)"? That would also make this information to colorblind readers. -- Beland (talk) 19:05, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with (2) and (3). I don't think a separate column for start an end dates makes any sense here. For (1) it should be fine to use colours as it is common practise on wikipedia. I'd suggest instead to put such dates, which are still subject to approval in italics, maybe in combination with a legend above the table listing, if desired. This could also be in favour of colourblind readers. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@Nightwalker-87: I was about to add the italics to the red text for the benefit of color-blind users, as suggested, but then I remembered that as Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Text points out, screen readers will ignore both the red and the italics. I think we would need to add some words to the cell like "(expected)" or "(scheduled)" so both screenreaders and color-blind readers would be able to tell the difference. -- Beland (talk) 03:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

It should be ok to go with italics and "(est)" standing for "estimated". Nightwalker-87 (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Using italics would require explaining the meaning of the italics. That seems like additional reading we don't want our audience to have to do, and it would be entirely redundant to the "(est.)". I'll just add the text. -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Slovenia 3g sunset

https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2023/04/26/a1-slovenia-to-say-goodbye-to-3g-in-june/ Adhame95 (talk) 22:15, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Added to article. Drahtlos (talk) 11:44, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Singapore shutdown in july 2024

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/singapore-to-switch-off-3g-networks-in-july-2024--1470922?utm_source=headlines_-_english&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=26-07-2023&utm_content=textlink Adhame95 (talk) 23:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2023/07/27/singapore-mnos-to-fully-retire-3g-services-by-end-july-2024/?utm_source=CommsUpdate&utm_campaign=d77ef8379d-CommsUpdate+27+July+2023&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0688983330-d77ef8379d-11685860 Adhame95 (talk) 10:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Notes column in shutdown table

@Nightwalker-87: The unexplained (on the article page) red font color in the Notes column is quite distracting. It looks like a long list of either errors or broken wikilinks. You said in your edit summary this is meant to denote shutdowns in progress; I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Is China Mobile actually still shutting down 3G after having started in 2016? In some cases there's an expected shutdown end date in the past. Just making these all black would improve the appearance and also avoid asserting claims we don't have references for.

I also noticed that putting the footnote numbers on a different line than text notes in that column makes the table about a third longer than necessary, which results in a lot of extra scrolling. Would you prefer to put the footnote numbers at the end of the text notes on the same line, or put the references in a separate column, or some other solution? -- Beland (talk) 03:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, China Mobile is indeed still in the process of shutting down. According to professional research this may even last up to 2025 at the earliest.

So far the common practise has been to keep referenced information as long as further information is available that can be cited (WP:VER & WP:CS). Please note that this article is actively maintained and this highlighting also serves as a reminder for further research. Thus we should not simply turn these to black. We can change the colour to orange or any thing similar though where further references are needed.

Regarding footnotes: Moving them to a separate column sounds reasonable. However I'd keep the "Notes" column at the end. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 10:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@Nightwalker-87: Well, I separated columns per the above. If you insist on keeping it, I think would be a lot less obtrusive if the color was in the background with black text. Did you want to do just one color for "shutdown in progress", or two colors, for "shutdown complete" and "shutdown in progress"? Whole row or just one column? -- Beland (talk) 20:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Beland: Ok, that's better. However, please also have a look at List of CDMA2000 networks as an example in order to further align the formatting. I believe that would be the most acceptable compromise that can be found to address all needs. Nightwalker-87 (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)