• What Does "3G" Mean?
Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 08:00AM 
With the introduction of the next generation of the iPhone there are a lot of new terms being bandied about. One of them, which has been well-known for years by insiders in the wireless industry, is "3G." It can be confusing to try to figure out some of these abbreviations and especially so in the case of the iPhone - read on to find out why.
"3G" is shorthand for "third generation" and people in the wireless industry (who are just as guilty of using their own language as computer geeks, cooks, the French or attorneys) use it to refer to the phones and networks that function at faster speeds than the previous two generations. The first generation ("1G", if you will) were the original analog cell phones that you might remember... clunky, lousy battery life, static-filled dinosaurs that were compelling at the time because there wasn't an alternative.
The second generation of phones - "2G" is what a lot... in fact, most, people are using today. They are digital phones that have lots of cool features that we've now started to take for granted, such as caller ID and clear reception, but aren't capable of supporting the higher-speed networks which are now being deployed in (mostly larger) cities. Europeans are ahead of us in this area, as are most Asian systems, because we have a patchwork of protocols in the U.S. instead of a consistent, mandated protocol as there is in other places.
"3G" (third generation) phones are different. With a 3G phone you can collect email, browse the web, watch video, use live videoconferencing and pretty much anything else you can do from a computer with a broadband connection. In fact, you could view 3G as "broadband for cell phones" and be fairly accurate. It's not going to give you the same speeds as your cable modem, but it's not too far removed from the speeds of a standard DSL line and, compared to the 2G speeds, is pretty darn fast.
The reason that it's particularly confusing in regards to the iPhone is that the iPhone is now in its second iteration - some would say its second generation. So, while the iPhone itself is in its second generation, the technology that it uses is actually "3G," thus the "3G" designator that Apple is using to differentiate it from the original, first generation iPhone. If they wanted to be really specific about it, they could call it "iPhone v2, using 3G wireless technology." But marketing geeks have their own language, too, and it's heavily abbreviated. Thus the shortening of the whole thing to "iPhone 3G."
I hope that this helps you understand the differences between the various generations of wireless technology. If you'd like to discuss this in more detail please don't hesitate to contact me directly and I'll try to assist further.
Reader Comments (6)
Just a minor typo: make "you cable modem" "your cable modem" Not a big deal and this is an excellent, clear article and is very helpful to readers. I'm an editor so minor infraction jump out to me but you content is very clear. Thank you!
(in reference to the comment above)
if you were an editor, then I would have expected you to say that "your content is very clear", and not "but you content is very clear". Since you are an editor and all, and likes to be critical.
I live in NYC and frequent the down under employee area of the Metropolitan Opera House and get no reception using my AT&T Krzr2 cell phone, neither does my wife using her old Samsung phone. We have noticed no one else using AT&t gets reception. The only ones that get reception are Verizon wireless users.
Can you advise how and what I can do to rectify this problem, short of switching to Verizon?
If the carrier has not built their system to provide coverage in that underground area there's little that you can do short of adding a booster (more on that in a moment) to improve it. Even Verizon may not provide sufficient coverage there as it's a unique application and costs them a fair amount of money to do it while not generating a lot of usage. That said, if Verizon happens to have a cell site right nearby, or even in that building, that would be why Verizon customers could get coverage.
There are boosters that you can get and I've blogged about it here:
http://www.thewirelesswizard.com/tips-tricks-shortcuts/2008/6/24/coming-soon-a-cell-site-in-your-den.html
and here:
http://www.thewirelesswizard.com/tips-tricks-shortcuts/2009/1/7/yikes-theres-a-cell-site-in-my-den.html
You'll need at least a little bit of a signal to boost, though, for the booster to work, so if there's no signal at all that won't help.
I'd recommend getting signatures on a petition from all of the AT&T customers who would like coverage in the underground and then writing a letter to them, attention of the "Cell Site Selection Department" and tell them that it's pretty bad publicity for such a well-known organization as yours to not be able to get the coverage it needs from them while their competitor does provide that coverage.
Hope this helps - I'm happy to offer additional assistance if you'd like. Just send email to info at thewirelesswizard dot com and I'll reply directly.
Good luck!
I am somewhat challenged when it comes to all this stuff in our fast-paced world of Technology. This article was GREAT! You explained it in an easy-to-understand manner! I did not once sit here, tilt my head and go "Huh? What are they saying??!!"
I am sure I will be visiting your site again!
Very nice of you to say so - I really appreciate the kind comments.
If you have any thoughts about other topics that you would like to have explained please let me know; many of these posts come from ideas I've gotten by talking to other people and discovering the things that they don't understand about the industry or technology.
Glad you enjoyed it!