(GIST OF SCIENCE REPORTER) Mobile Phone Generations

[December-2022]

5G stands for the new global wireless standard that will fuel the 5th generation of mobile networks. It comes after generations 1 to 4 (1G to 4G).
The first generation (circa 1980s) delivered voice-only, using analogue technology.
With Generation 2, in the mid-1990s, this became digital voice using CDMA or Code Division Multiple Access along with Short Message Services also called text messaging.
In the early 2000s, 3rd Generation phones, bringing data to mobile phones, allowed us to browse the Internet.
After 2010, the 4th Generation phones brought broadband on mobile using technologies like LTE (Long Term Evolution) and VoLTE (Voice over LTE—the preferred tech for Jio phones) which promised speeds of 100 megabits per second.
However, what most of us experienced was 10-15 MBPS. But it allowed users to install and use data hungry apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube.
Around 2019-20, 5G was launched in some countries. It had a theoretical top speed of 20 GBPS, but in practice 5G phone users can expect 100MBPS to 1000 MBPS or 1 GBPS.
However, speed alone is not the biggest gain in 5G, reduced latency is a big plus. 5G will enable a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.