To most of us in the technology circuit, the coming of 3G has been long awaited. We've been expecting it for over a year now and I'm sometimes tempted to believe its coming here is just a myth. The mystery seems to be why is it taking so long. For the average mobile user frustrated with the use of EDGE, which is fully capable of getting most of the job done but just isn't as fast as we hoped, 3G will be a godsend. Although most mobile phone users I spoke with, even those who have changed their handsets multiple times over the course of history, didn't really know what 3G actually meant.

Most understood it to be mean faster internet connectivity, a few thought that all it meant was you'd be able to make video calls to others like they show in the movies. Others simply thought I was referring to the iPhone Third Generation handset and not the technology. In the simplest of terms, what 3G means for the average user is speedier access to the internet and VOIP services. So what does 3G or Third Generation mean in a stricter sense of the term? Take a look at where it's come from.

The path to 3G
3G is the result of nearly a decade of development and evolution of the GSM standard. It brings with it a host of changes, including near broadband-like data speeds, video conferencing – and, with the increasing complexity of mobiles, support for new technologies such as GPS and streaming video.

Image Source: Anritsu

However, before it reached its current state, GSM had to undergo a rather painful growth. GSM was conceived in the early 80s as a common standard to be deployed across Europe. This required the cooperation of 13 countries and sharing of knowledge before the first network went live in 1991.

After that it went through a lean phase with adoption being slow, as there were a pressing number of issues such as excess traffic handling ability, lack of network security and cost of deployment. Another aspect was the fact that 1G networks were purely analog networks. Thanks to these, the towers for these networks had to be powerful and put out some strong signals for the (bulky!) handsets to receive them. The lack of mass adoption meant call rates were high.

2G brought with it some crucial changes which included increased traffic handling, improved call clarity by a liberal use of voice codecs, and reduced power requirements which allowed handsets to become smaller and consume less power. 2G also brought with it call encryption which made 'wireless sniffing' next to impossible. All this was made possible as networks were now fully digital.

The introduction of 2G networks was a catalyst for the explosion of the GSM phenomenon. The rapid pace of adoption saw the cost of equipment fall, and deployment costs going down rapidly. The most important fact of this particular generation was the emergence of text messaging, popularly known as SMS. It became the one 'killer' feature on whose popularity alone GSM saw some explosive growth.

This growth was not smooth, however. Around this time the Internet had exploded and proliferated as a mass medium. As mobile telephony began to get more popular (and in some countries even overtook fixed line telephony) as the main method of communication, the need for 'always-on' data connectivity was felt. This was made possible with the introduction of GPRS, a massive step up from the previous generation.

Thanks to GPRS, it became possible to be always connected via a WAP browser to the Internet and have anytime, anywhere access at usable speeds. To accommodate this, networks were enhanced to better support data connectivity. This generation also saw the evolution of the SMS standard into a multimedia-ready state (MMS). While MMS didn't have the same commercial success as SMS, it nevertheless came to define the 2.5G standard.

It is here that we see a curious fork in GSM evolution. UMTS was intended to be a direct upgrade for all 2.5G networks. However, due to the very high costs involved, a new form of data connectivity was offered to compensate and offer good standby service till 3G could be implemented. This service was called EDGE and was an evolution of the old GPRS format. It offered vastly superior speeds and far better connectivity for the newly emerging camera phone market and smartphones. This phase is now popularly referred to as 2.75G .

This brings us to 3G. Technically it's a direct upgrade to EDGE networks, but it runs on a wholly different set of frequencies. It also employs a different underlying technology (WCDMA) and can make only part use of existing networks. Entirely new infrastructure has to be deployed for the successful roll out of 3G.

 

What 3G offers
From video phone calls to using the Internet to make calls (VoIP) to wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data services, 3G offers it all. Just imagine being able to see on your phone screen someone you're in conversation with! (Of course, this may not always be in your best interests, should you be in the middle of something indiscreet, but nevertheless it is the next step in mobile technology.)

3G technology allows you do all of this and so much more. The technology also makes it a lot easier for mobile service providers to easily support a larger amount of voice as well as data users. To give you a clearer view, these are some of the services that 3G, as a whole, offers users:

To avail of these services, your mobile device has to be 3G compatible. Of course, these days most are. Switching to a 3G way of life also requires a hefty investment from the service providers. Perhaps that's why we haven't seen it in India yet. But, as we mentioned, it won't be too long now.

What lies beyond
While India takes its first 'baby' steps towards 3G, the rest of the world has moved on. 3G already has an upgrade – 3.5G, which has brought streaming TV, the ability to stream video directly from your cellphone (similar to a webcam), and a whole lot of other amazing features. In India we've been waiting a really long time for the service to kick in and it seems like that wait is not yet over. So far BSNL and MTNL are the only two mobile service providers that are operating with 3G services. Unfortunately the 3G range is limited to very specific areas of a few cities that include Mumbai and Delhi.  Number portability is supposed to become a reality this month but the few reps of the various mobile service providers I spoke with seemed quite skeptical of its arrival before the first quarter of 2010.