3G is a wireless network that uses radio transmission and meets ITU standards. There are different 3G systems, including CDMA 2000, HSDPA, TD-SCDMA, UMTS, and W-CDMA. They provide varying data rates and support multimedia. The fourth generation is under development with LTE and WiMAX as competing technologies.
The wireless network referred to in terms of cell phone connectivity is an alternative to connections that rely on copper wire and often uses radio transmission. 3G stands for Third Generation Wireless, indicating that two other generations of standards preceded it: 1G, an analog system developed in the 1960s and 1970s, and 2G, a digital system that began to be developed towards the end of the 1970s. ‘1980. 3G systems are those built to meet the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards for third generation mobile telephony systems, under the IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications Program IMT-2000.
Experts disagree both on whether IMT-2000 led to a series of 3G systems that combine consistency with flexibility or on the bundling of incompatible elements that has left the systems competing for dominance. In any case, there are different 3G systems even if the number varies depending on who you read. Among the accounts, they include CDMA 2000 (Code Division Multiple Access), HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), UMTS (Telecommunication Systems mobile phones) and W-CDMA (Broadband Code Division Multiple Access).
CDMA can transmit multiple signals simultaneously on the same frequency and is the technology behind three 3G systems: CDMA 2000, HSDPA and WCDMA, the latter two of which are used by Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) carriers. In 2009, there were 460 million customers with the same CDMA, half of them in Asia. In the US, Verizon® and Sprint® both use CDMA, while AT&T® and T-Mobile® use HSDPA. UMTS is a GSM standard using WCDMA and HSPA.
3G systems are all capable of providing data rates that vary depending on the situation. Expectations in the standards are 144 kbps (kilobytes per second) or more in fast-moving vehicular traffic, 384 kbps for pedestrian traffic, and 2 MBps (megabytes per second) for internal, or near stationary, telephone use. They are all authorized to determine the location of mobile phones. And they all support multimedia in various ways.
The fourth generation reporting system is under development and is expected to be fully implemented between 2012 or 2013 and 2015, according to various estimates. As of 2010, two competing technologies have been implemented. One is LTE (Long Term Evolution). Another is WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). Both of these 4G networks were already starting to replace 3G in locations around the world in 2009-2010.
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