Cell Phones

[littlebigone]

What is GSM, 2G, 3G, and all that? Anyone know the difference?

[screw3d]

What is GSM, 2G, 3G, and all that? Anyone know the difference?
Check sig for more information :P

Go to HowardForums (http://www.howardforums.com/) for all kinda information on Cell phones. Not sure how helpful the community is but I'm sure you'll get what you want.

The specific thread that you might wanna look into is this (http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?s=b9da8fc76590bd23632cf49986787d09&threadid=62510)

[Ishveir]

GSM= phones that we can have a SIM card in, has an acceptable world wide network with other communication providers.
G's in 2 and 3 indicate Generation
currently Malaysia is just trying out 3G technology where you can have video conferencing via cell phone and have the image appear too
Japan is already addapting 4G, that is how backdated we in Malaysia are :P..However we are moving on, do not fear.

[masterof_none]

GSM stands for Global System for Mobiles.
GSM is suppose to be standard for cellphone (the way they transfer the data. slightly different from CDMA, which would be explained in a moment
HOW GSM WORKS (http://www.computersathome.com/content/digital_home/cellphones/199050108.asp)

GSM widely used in Europe.

The US has its own standard , namely CDMA


CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access. The CDMA was invented by Qualcomm (http://www.qualcomm.com)(an unknown San Diego company few years back).
Before CDMA, the US use TDMA (time Division Multiple access) , which is less efficient. The way they share the data were they to develop the cell systems (hence the term cell-phone). The cell system still widely used until now (the explanation is a little complicated that I'll leave it to the expert).

But since the explosive growth in the cell-phone market recently, the GSM standard compete aggressively with CDMA. (if u use CDMA, they usually have the sticker saying "CDMA" at the back of your cellphone)

2G stands for "second generation" of cellphone,likewise, 3G is Third Generation. ALthough these terminologies are really confusing, it really refer to how fast you can download/upload pictures, browsing internet and so on, it's kinda like when you have dial-up and cable to connect to the Internet, or
you have 302.11b and 302.11g wireless internet access.

3G needs huge investments. In Europe, I heard a few months ago that it's implementation was a fiasco. The reason is that the market isn't there yet. Maybe because lack of apps written on cellphone...or lack of better alternative to boost the demand, or simply that it's hard to make money out of really small apps/competing apps.

Right now, there are lot of companies still optimistic about 3G.
One of the is Qualcomm itself. Read this for background :
http://www.silicon.com/networks/mobile/0,39024665,39116862,00.htm . SOme companies like Ericsson also invested in Malaysia for this very reason. 3G got some problems because of its recent failure in the Europe market.
There are many investors are still wait-and-see out there...
see whether it's the next big thing after the personal computer revolution.



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[screw3d]

GSM= phones that we can have a SIM card in, has an acceptable world wide network with other communication providers.
G's in 2 and 3 indicate Generation
currently Malaysia is just trying out 3G technology where you can have video conferencing via cell phone and have the image appear too
Japan is already addapting 4G, that is how backdated we in Malaysia are :P..However we are moving on, do not fear.
GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) refers to the technology/standard/wireless interface, not the kind of phone. a GSM enabled phone merely adheres to the GSM standards. I think. Hmmm...

The Gs is also a standard.. a 3G phone would mean that it should *theoretically* perform the way 3G specifies it.

For more information, read all about it here (http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/ni/3g/technology/index.html) from ITU - International Telecommunication Union.

[screw3d]

The US has only recently introduced GSM to the market because all the existing wireless infrastructure was still in CDMA as explained by master_ofnone. It's also expensive to upgrade the network to GSM. That's why we have both GSM and CDMA networks in the US now.. telcos in the US also uses a different network band (GSM800) compared to what Maxis/Digi/Celcom etc. use in Malaysia (GSM900/1800). When we talk about a dual/tri-band phones, it is referring to those network bands.

Of course that's just for GSM.. there are some other (mostly older) technologies that I have completely no clue about..

Anybody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Excal]

How about HSDPA?

[vseehua]

How about HSDPA?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsdpa

[luke]

talking about 3G .. I hereby declare that I'm a very satisfied 3G (Celcom) user! In fact, I'm writing this very post from my laptop with my Nokia 3G phone as the modem!