Mobile Broadband - Generations

Generations

Roughly every ten years new mobile phone technology and infrastructure involving a change in the fundamental nature of the service, non-backwards-compatible transmission technology, higher peak data rates, new frequency bands, wider channel frequency bandwidth in Hertz becomes available. These transitions are referred to as generations:

Second generation (2G) from 1991:

  • first mobile data service
  • GSM CSD (2G): 9.6 kbit/s
  • GSM GPRS (2.5G): 56 to 115 kbit/s
  • GSM EDGE (2.75G): up to 237 kbit/s

Third generation (3G) from 2001:

  • UMTS W-CDMA: 0.4 Mbit/s down and up
  • UMTS HSPA: 14.4 Mbit/s down; 5.8 Mbit/s up
  • UMTS TDD: 16 Mbit/s down and up
  • CDMA2000 1xRTT: 0.3 Mbit/s down; 0.15 Mbit/s up
  • CDMA2000 EV-DO: 2.5 to 4.9 Mbit/s down; 0.15 to 1.8 up
  • GSM EDGE-Evolution: 1.6 Mbit/s down; 0.5 Mbit/s up

Fourth generation (4G) from 2006:

  • HSPA+: 21 to 672 Mbit/s down; 5.8 to 168 Mbit/s up
  • Mobile WiMAX (802.16): 37 to 365 Mbit/s down; 17 to 376 Mbit/s up
  • LTE: 100 to 300 Mbit/s down; 50 to 75 Mbit/s up
  • LTE-Advanced: 100 Mbit/s moving at higher speeds to 1 Gbit/s not moving or moving at low speeds
  • MBWA: (802.20): 80 Mbit/s

The download (to the user) and upload (to the Internet) data rates given above are peak or maximum rates and end users will typically experience lower data rates.

WiMAX was originally developed to deliver fixed wireless service with wireless mobility added in 2005. CDMA2000 EV-DO and MBWA (Mobile Broadband Wireless Access) are no longer being actively developed.

In 2011, 90% of the world's population lived in areas with 2G coverage, while 45% lived in areas with 2G and 3G coverage.

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