For an average Nigerian, 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G
are the most commonly seen terms when it
comes to mobile technology. Now this is
what you don’t know. The “G” here stands
for generation of mobile technology,
installed in phones and on cellular networks.
1G is for analog phones, during this period
mobile internet has not resurrected in
Nigeria (thanks to Baba Sege) well, in the
year 1992 the second generation came alive.
2G marked the birth of digital phones, GPRS
which means (General packet radio service)
represents data transmission in 2G. One
practical advantage of GPRS when
considering speed is that 6-10 SMS
messages can be sent when sent over GSM
whereas 30 SMS messages can be sent per
minute when sent over GPRS. It has a data
transmission rate of 114kbps (kilobytes per
second). Most of the phones, excluding
some smart phones we use in Nigeria run
on GPRS and EDGE. EDGE 2.5G (Enhanced
data rate for global evolution) also came
alive which was in between the 2nd
generation and the evolution of the 3rd
generation.
In the year 2003, the 3rd generation mobile
network (3G) came to the U.S. this has a
minimum internet speed of 144kbps which
could go as high as 400kbps and above.
There are a bunch of technologies that fall
under 3G which includes (WCDMA, EV-DO,
and HSPA among others). So depending on
what you see on your modem, be it MTN,
Visafone, GLO, Multilinks etc. It’s still 3G.
4G represents the 4th generation of mobile
technology, according to IMT-Advanced
(International mobile telecommunications
Advanced. To be able to qualify as 4G
technology, speed of up to 100mbps
(megabytes per second) for moving users
and 1gbps (gigabytes per second) for
stationary users must be transmitted. As
with 3G, 4G has a bunch of technologies that
falls under it as well. Here we have (LTE,
WiMAX and UMB). In Nigeria, Swift
transmits using WiMAX which can be
classified as Pre-4G or 3.9G claims to be
providing us with 4G transmission, as a
Nigerian have you ever seen an internet
speed close to 1gbps? Be the judge…………