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What does the G represent? Well to put it simply, the G represents different generations in mobile connection speeds. They represent different mobile standards in cellular communications. And who defines these standards? The International Telecommunication Union or the ITU defines the standards for mobile telecommunications. The table below shows the evolution of these standards. 3
0 i nS h a r e
tweets
Definition 14.4 Kbps 14.4 Kbps 20-40 Kbps Digital Cellular Packet data on 2G
Speed
Technologies AMPs, WMT,TACS TDMA, GSM, CDMA GPRS CDMA EVDO, UMTS, EDGE
Digital Broadband packet Max 3.1 Mbps, 500-700 Kbps data (avg) High Speed Packet Access Digital Broadband (All IP)
Max 14.4 Mbps, 1.3 Mbps (avg) HSPA 100-300 Mbps (Max), 3.6 Mbps WiMax, LTE, WiFi (Avg)
In the good ol days the first cell phones were analog based and worked pretty well for voice but were limited. In the next generation, 2G in this case, digital cellular technology was developed, not for faster speed necessarily, but to handle more voice signals simultaneously, increasing the bandwidth. These are the technologies we are familiar with TDMA (which Bell and Rogers had early on), GSM which Rogers still has and CDMA which BELL and TELUS still have in their legacy networks.
What is 3G?
3G represented the introduction of data, though there was an intermediate 2.5G for GSM called GPRS, and this standard was based on digital broadband. It includes terms we may have heard about CDMA EVDO, from Bell and TELUS, and UMTS or EDGE which Rogers introduced. This technology allowed and facilitated the growth of the smartphone as we could easily send data packets over the air at theoretical speeds as high as 3 Mbps, but more likely to see 500 700 Kps signal speeds.