What is 3G? It's an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard for third generation mobile telephone systems
under the International Mobile Telecommunications programme, IMT-2000. Analog cellular was the
first generation, digital PCS was the second. Along with W-CDMA, 3G was the big rage in the
late 90's, with proponents announcing that it was the Killer Wireless Application because of its ability to simultaneously
transfer voice data (the phone call) and other non-voice data such as music, photographs, video, email,
instant messaging, and information downloads. 3G networks use a variety of wireless network technologies, including GSM,
CDMA, TDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, UMTS and EDGE, and this leads to some confusion as well as a great deal of flexibility.
3G implementation was slower than initially anticipated, however, because of the cost of upgrading equipment and
licensing fees for additional spectrum. The earlier, 2G networks didn't typically
use the same frequencies as 3G (except in the United States), and licensing fees, particularly in
Europe, were extremely expensive. Only Japan and South Korea were able to implement this technology
quickly, largely because of the high level of government support for new infrastructure advances. In
Japan, by the end of 2006 the majority of customers were on 3G and upgrades to the next stage,
3.5G (with 3 Mbit/s data rates), were underway. Implementation in the rest of the world is coming along,
but at a slightly slower pace. In December 2007, 190 3G networks were operating in 40 countries, with 200 million
subscribers -- but that's still only around 7% of the 3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.
You may also see terms like 2.5G (almost there!), 3.5G (moving forward) and 4G (the step beyond). In fact, you may see
some people saying they have already existing 4G systems. However, the 4G standard has not yet been finalized, and the
"existing 4G&qot; systems are simply prototypes of technologies which may or may not become part of an eventual 4G
standard. As the deployment of 4G, like 3G and 2G, will involve the complete replacement of existing handsets and networks,
mobile experts are not predicting deployment until the 2012-2015 time frame. By that time, even with enhancements, the
3G networks will probably be fairly congested.
For ease of reference, we've combined information on all the "Gs" on this page.
The articles, resources, references and links below may help you through this maze of alphabet soup, jargon, acronyms
and confusing standards!
Comms Design.com,
An EE Times community, news & analysis on communications matters
The Road to 4G: WiMax Leads the Way,
TechNewsWorld article, July 2008; an enthusiastic and optimistic article about one of the competing wireless technologies under development
3G Articles from SSS Online's Technical Briefings Archive
ADOBE Acrobat (.pdf) Files Relating to Wireless, Cellular Telecomm and 3G:
1cdpd.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Cellular Digital Packet
Data (CDPD)" (~529K).
1tmacdma.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Media Access — TDMA and CDMA"
(~682K).
1cellular.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Cellular Telephony"
(~489K).
1dsss_intro.pdf
Paul Flikkema's (USF) Briefing — "Introduction to Spread Spectrum"
(~110K).
1eel6593_intro.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Mobile and Personal
Communications" (~106K).
1fading.pdf
Paul Flikkema's (USF) Briefing — "Narrowband Multipath Fading: A Simple Model"
(~73K).
1mod_intro.pdf
Paul Flikkema's (USF) Briefing — "Overview of Modulation Techniques for
Wireless" (~99K).
1modulation.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Digital Modulation"
(~499K).
1mediaaccess.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Media Access — Aloha and
CSMA" (~479K).
1mobicomp.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Challenges of Mobile Computing"
(~622K).
1xmobiledata.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Wide-Area Mobile Data
Systems" (~501K).
1mss.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Mobile Satellite Systems"
(~283K).
1prnet_intro.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing -- "CS294-7: Introduction to Packet Radio
Networks" (~264K).
1propagation.pdf
Prof. Randy H. Katz' (UCB) Briefing — "CS294-7: Radio Propagation"
(~402K).
fivepts.pdf
"The Technical Case For Convergence Of Third Generation Wireless Systems Based
On CDMA — Five Key Technical Principles To Consider" (~107K) — Thanks
Qualcomm.
fivexsum.pdf
"The GSM-CDMA Economic Study (Exectutive Summary)" by Anderson Consulting,
et al (~74K) — Thanks Qualcomm.
