Brief History of 3G
3G is the third generation of cell phone mobile communications standards and successor of the older 2G standards. 3G networks were a substantial improvement over 2G networks, offering previously unseen data transfer speeds. Although 3G has only been in the United States since 2002, it has been around much longer. 3G was first launched in Japan in 1998 pre-commercially and later commercially in 2001 (A Brand New). 3G was relatively slow to be adopted globally mostly due to the fact that 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G, so mobile carriers had to build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies. The 3G standard is well known for its massive expansion of the mobile communications market post-2G and large advances of the mobile phone and by June 2007, the 200 millionth 3G subscriber had been connected to the network. An especially notable development during this time is the advent of the smartphone, a major step forward in mobile technology. 3G also introduced the term "mobile broadband" because its speed and capability make it a viable alternative for high-speed internet browsing (3G vs 4G).
Current Status of 3G Although, 3G has been in use for over a decade, it doesn’t
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