3G Technology

As the telecommunication industry moves forward, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has proposed 3G telecommunication standards to ensure the cost-effective availability of high-bandwidth, high-quality, wireless multimedia applications and the mobile communications. Based on the International Telecommunication Union, 3G is a third generation mobile phone technology and it is also referred  UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System).  3G offers more great features, services and more capacity to the mobile phone operators.  Today, approximately 200 3G networks are operating in more than 40 countries of the world and there are millions of the 3G subscribers in the world. 

The most significant features of the 3G technology is that is supports greater voice and data capacity and higher data transfer rate at the lowest cost both in the rural and urban areas.  3G uses the radio spectrum, which allows the transmission of 384 kb/s for the mobile systems and the 2mb/s for the stationary systems. Today more telecommunication networks in the world are being upgraded to the 3G technologies because of its greater features, scalability, higher voice and data transfer rates and better performance than the 2G technologies.

In Japan, 3G was first introduced nationwide and now many telecommunication networks in the different countries of the world are now being shifted to the 3G technologies.  3G mobile phones are lightweight and they can operate both on the 2G and 3G technologies such as WCDMA and GSM.  3G has made it possible to make the telecommunication networks more power, efficient and capable of providing the excellent voice, video and data transmission speed.  The two primary technologies of the 3G are cdma2000 and wideband CDMA (or W-CDMA).

Bandwidth Specifications

• 2 Mbps for the fixed or low mobility environments
• 144 kbps in higher mobility environments
• 384 kbps in the moderate mobility environments

There is a separate technology known as EDGE, which provides the path to the GSM and TDMA.  It provides a maximum bandwidth of 384 kbps across the eight time slots.  Second generation digital technologies are based on the CDMA, GSM, and TDMA.  They enable the telecommunication providers to provide the value added services to the subscribers.  GSM operates at three different frequencies 900 MHz in Europe, 1800 in Europe and Asia and 1900 in USA and Canada.  3G communications involve the network infrastructures, base stations, routers, switches and other equipments, which allows the mobiles to offer higher speed internet access, and video, voice and data communications with the transmission speed up to 2 mbps. Along with the great benefits of the third generation technology it has some limitations and issues, which are described below.

• Lack of coverage
• High power usage
• Expenses of 3G mobile phone
• Differences in the likening terms.

 As the 3G technology grows and adopted by the large number of telecommunication operates, these issues will most likely to be resolved.