Nowadays, the most popular mobile phone have got ‘3G’ added to their name. It seems a marketing trick, and most stores will use it that way too, but 3G actually stands for something. The first mobile phones ran on analog networks and are therefore called 1G. Their successors were the digital mobile phones which were named 2G phones. 1G as well as 2G phones used some kind of digital network to broadcast their signals, but the difference lies in the way someone’s voice during a call was encoded. With 2G the voice was encoded to digital signals, with 1G it wasn’t.
2G phones were introduced in the nineties and distanced themselves from 1G phones because of the fast network they used. Also, the appearance of phones changed, they got much more portable and text messaging got possible due to the new networks.
3G stands for the newest generation of data transferring including internet and video streaming. 3G is like ADSL broadband internet in comparison to dial up internet. The technology ensures improved voice communications and data transfers. The speed can differ from 144Kbps to 2.4Mbps.
The successor of the 3G-network will be 4G which will probably make live streaming possible and offer the users even more advanced services. This technology is still in development and at the moment it is called LTE. The more popular term 4G is officially not allowed since the network does not comply to the requirements of IMT-Advanced. Rumors are the speed of a 4G network will be around 100Mbps.
