List of mobile phone generations

This is a list of mobile phone generations:

0G, also known as Mobile radio telephone, are the systems that preceded modern cellular mobile telephony technology.

1G (or 1-G) refers to the first generation of wireless telephone technology (mobile telecommunications). These are the analog telecommunications standards that were introduced in the 1980s and continued until being replaced by 2G digital telecommunications. The main difference between the two mobile telephone systems (1G and 2G), is that the radio signals used by 1G networks are analog, while 2G networks are digital.

2G (or 2-G) provides three primary benefits over their predecessors: phone conversations were digitally encrypted; 2G systems were significantly more efficient on the spectrum allowing for far greater mobile phone penetration levels; and 2G introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS (Short Message Service) plain text-based messages. 2G technologies enabled the various mobile phone networks to provide the services such as text messages, picture messages and MMS (Multimedia Message Service). It has 3 main services: Bearer services is one of them which is also known as data services.

All text messages sent over 2G are digitally encrypted, allowing for the transfer of data in such a way that only the intended receiver can receive and read it.

Second generation 2G cellular telecom networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard in Finland by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Oyj) in 1991.

3G technology provides an information transfer rate of at least 200 kbit/s. Later 3G releases, often denoted 3.5G and 3.75G, also provide mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones and mobile modems in laptop computers. This ensures it can be applied to wireless voice telephony, mobile Internet access, fixed wireless Internet access, video calls and mobile TV technologies.

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