Generations of mobile technologies

           According to the emerged technologies, there were some generations of evolution of mobile technologies and it is still evolving. Here, I have mentioned the four generations that we have gone through for the past decades.

First generation (1G)

                1G is the first generation of cell phone technology. 1G is an analog technology and the phones generally had poor battery life and voice quality was large without much security.

The very first generation of commercial cellular network was introduced in the late 70’s with fully implemented standards being established throughout the 80’s. It was introduced in 1987 by Telecom. The analog telecommunications standards that were introduced in the 1980s continued until being replaced by 2G digital tele communication.

The maximum speed of 1G is 2.4kbps.

Second generation (2G)

                Cell phones received their first major upgrade when they went from 1G to 2G. The main difference between 1G and 2G is that the radio signals used by 1G networks are analog while 2G networks are digital. 2G networks implemented the concept of CDMA and GSM. 2G cellular telecom networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard in 1991.

                2G provided small data service like SMS and MMS. The advance in technology from 1G to 2G introduced many of the fundamental services that we still use today, such as SMS, internal roaming, conference calls, call hold and billing based services.

                The maximum speed of 2G with GPRS is 50kbps and 1Mbps with EDGE.

Third generation (3G)

                3G set the standards for most of the wireless technology we have come to know and love. Web browsing, email, video downloading, picture sharing and other smart phone technology were introduced in the third generation.

                3G was introduced commercially in 2001. Goals of the third generation mobile communication were to facilitate greater voice and data capacity, support a wider range of applications, and increase data transmission at a lower cost.

                In 3G, universal access and portability across different device types are made possible. The speed of 3G is in between 144kbps and 2Mbps.

Fourth generation (4G)

                4G is a very different technology as compared to 3G. Its purpose is to provide high speed, high quality and high capacity to users while improving security and lower the cost of voice and data services, multimedia and internet over IP.

                The two important 4G standards are WiMAX and LTE. LTE is a series of upgrades to existing UMTS technology. When 4G first became available, it was simply a little faster than 3G. 4G is not the same as 4G LTE which is very close to meeting the criteria of the standards. To download a new game or stream a TV show in HD, you can do it without buffering.

                The real world speed of a 4G network is about 60Mbps.