Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 February 15

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February 15

Future of GSM

I am pretty sure that old-school GSM phones still work: they can handle voice calls and send and receive SMS. Is GSM expected to keep operating for the foreseeable future, say next few years at least? Or are there known plans to shut it off anytime soon? I know that fancier phones these days tend to use VolTE and maybe there is other stuff like that too. 2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 05:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The article you linked GSM#Discontinuation briefly discusses this and has a see also 2G#Phase-out which discusses specific shut offs in more detail albeit not limited to GSM. It notes some carriers have kept it alive for IoT only which I assume means no voice calls. Nil Einne (talk) 08:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

BTW the lead of the GSM article says "Many carriers (like Verizon) will shutdown GSM and CDMA in 2022." but a read of the source [1] shows it's only referring to the US. And in fact even in the US it's seems to be misleading since it sounds like only one Verizon is shutting down GSM or CDMA in 2022, with others either already having shut them down or shutting down 3G networks instead. (Our 2G article does suggest T-Mobile could also be shutting down their GSM network but the source suggests they haven't set a fixed date unlike with 3G.)

Anyway the PC Mag article raises two significant points. Even without completely shutting down the 2G network, some carriers may have reduced coverage or have not expanded their coverage so GSM may no longer operate in areas it used to or have the best coverage. For example, here in NZ sites built by the rural connectivity group have only ever had 3G and 4G or nowadays 4G only [2] [3]. (Two of NZ's networks have shut down 2G anyway but one is still keeping it.)

The Huawei SingleRAN and other similar solutions have I think helped extend phaseout times since while carriers may still prefer to use their frequencies for something else, it at least means they don't have to spend a lot of money to continue to support them. (Since the Huawei device seems to have been the most popular device of that kind, I suspect Huawei's problems with the US and some other governments have on the flipside brought forward phaseout times, since carriers may be unsure about continuing with their devices especially in the 5G world.)

That TCF link, and also the earlier PCMag one both sort of address another issue which I'll mostly deal with via OR. A big problem carriers face seem to be compatibility issues. Even for newer devices, 4G support can sometimes be a bit of a mess since there are a lot of different bands and devices often don't support them all, so roaming and parallel imported devices can be a mess. GSM was simplest albeit complicated by competition with CDMA but with four bands being enough for most places which did use GSM. W-CDMA added a but more complexity. But with LTE it seems to have become a real mess. Note also that because the some of the bands may be used for extra speeds in urban areas or more widespread coverage in rural areas, even for a regular user (not someone roaming), they may find their device works well enough for them especially with a 3G fall back despite incomplete support for the bands used by their network.

To add to that, even if you have no problem connecting to the network, VoLTE is in an even worse state especially on Android. It requires profile specific to the carrier. But carrier profiles cannot generally be added except via root [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] and manufacturers seem to have been very haphazard in adding them even when they've been made available for a while. So even if your device supports VoLTE and your carrier does, it doesn't mean it will work. In fact, since the carrier profile you need may not be in all firmware versions, if you have a parallel imported device it may not work even though the official import does. (But also fairly sure in some places even to this day, official imports supported by a carrier still may lack VoLTE support for their network.) Some/many? carriers will only enable VoLTE for devices known to be compatible so even if you do hack it in, you may still have problems getting it working.

Therefore a lot of devices may still use 2G or 3G for voice calls. Since many people now use apps for voice calls bypassing the ordinary phone-voice call network, there's likely a lot less concern about the VoLTE then there would have been 10+ years ago, which could be one reason why VoLTE is still such a mess. However my earlier point on app voice calls not withstanding, there's probably still a fair amount of pressure on carriers especially from regulators to ensure there is widespread support for carrier network voice calls for emergency purposes, so probably not something they can just ignore.

The net effect of all this is that carriers may feel they need preserve either a 2G or 3G network for compatibility reasons especially for roaming customers and maybe also for those using unsupported perhaps (but as said not always) parallel imported devices depending on the local market. (I'm guessing there's a lot better support for local VoLTE for phones sold in the US than there is in NZ for example.) Some have chosen 3G, probably because it's useful as a consumer data network. Others have chosen 2G, probably due to some combination of widest compatibility, usage by IoT devices, lower power and perhaps their 3G coverage never reached 2G levels.

(The IoT market is a particularly interesting one since I think there's may still be a fair amount of need for it. For example if a widely deployed smart meter does not and cannot be upgraded remotely to use something else, replacing a lot of them in the field may be costly. However one network is probably enough for it, I think this is one of the reasons's Vodafone NZ has kept their GSM network despite initial suggestions they'll shut it down along with the others. Also as mentioned at the beginning, there's no guarantee this network will be available for ordinary consumers to use especially for voice calls.)

Nil Einne (talk) 10:11, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the very detailed response! It helps a lot. 2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 03:38, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Statistical analysis software: alternatives for SPSS

I am looking for open-source software that can replace SPSS. Statistical analyses I often use include EFA, CFA, and regression analyses. If the software provides such features that allow export results summary tables and some graphs, it would be great. Hwoarang1999 (talk) 15:42, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Have you looked at R? It can do everything (and more), although the learning curve may be a bit steep (I don't know SPSS so I don't know how it compares). --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:12, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

It's worth learning R in my opinion. But have you checked out PSPP? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:14, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

According to the SPSS article there's also JASP. You might want to look at Comparison of statistical packages. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:22, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Most people like RStudio. It has a lot of buttons that you don't get from the command-line R interpreter. It is very similar to SAS, but without the steep out-of-pocket expense. Both R and SAS are very professional products with a lot of power. If you want something in the same area, but easier to learn, you might consider Matlab, which again has a fee. There is a free alternative, Octave. They are more geared towards working with matrices, but have all the statistical functionality most people want. Again, both have plenty of little panes and buttons like RStudio and SAS. If you demand open-source, you are stuck with R and Octave. Neither SAS nor Matlab are open source. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 18:34, 15 February 2022 (UTC)