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Primer: Intro To Cellular Networks

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3G? What About 1 and 2? Fine, So What About 3G?  

3G stands for 3rd generation; it is the next revision of cellular protocols.

The first generation was analog protocols. One called AMPS was the primary one used in the US and is the only one still in use here. Analog systems are relatively inefficient and don't sound very clear, but there are many rural areas which still have not been upgraded to a more modern system.

Second Generation (2G) protocols are digital. They use less power and tend to have clearer sound. Digital systems allow many more callers to use a cell at one time because they can divide up the limited spectrum of a cell more efficiently. TDMA, GSM, and CDMA are all 2G technologies. When 2G technologies were being developed, voice calls were their focus.

As ringtones, mobile web browsers and picture messaging were under development, the players in the cellular industry realized they had done a good job improving voice calls, but the data services these new applications required were still in the '80s. They developed protocols that came to be known as 2.5G. New, faster data transmissions protocols were developed. For GSM systems, this is called GPRS, for CDMA it is called 1xRTT. TDMA was dropped by many carriers, which then shifted to GSM, because there were no significant 2.5G TDMA developments.

The upgrade to 1xRTT was much more significant than the upgrade to GPRS. In addition to significantly speeding up data, CDMA 2000 1xRTT also doubled the voice capacity of the original CDMA protocols.

Not much more could be done to improve the way voice calls work, but 2.5G data speeds were still pretty slow, which is why industry players have been launching 3G networks. Where 2.5G was built on 2G technologies, 3G is built on newer technologies that requires new phones and new base stations, so it takes some time to launch.

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