Mobile Communications Technologies

Have you ever wondered how different H+ is from 3G or what kind of speed benefit do you have on one over the other? Well, that’s the goal of this article; we will cover most of wireless technologies and standards we find in modern mobile devices and see how they differ in speed and performance.

Fun Fact: Bluetooth was initially intended for wireless headsets and its name was taken from the anglicized version the tenth-century Scandinavian king Heral Bluetooth who united the Danish tribes into one kingdom and the logo from his initials.

When we talk about mobile communications so many names pop up, there’s 4G, NFC, Bluetooth, 3G, 5G (the new kid in town), the almighty EDGE, USB-C (yeah, it is), infrared, among others. These are all true, however, mobile communication technologies are often categorized into groups of which most fall under wireless communication. Imagine the world without wireless technologies; no WiFi, no mobile phones (take a moment, let that sit in), everything is “cabled”. No one will obviously want to live in such a world, well some people might.

There’s so much to talk about mobile communication technologies, but our goal is to provide information about tech in its simplest form to the public. Therefore, we will not go into too many details about these technologies only what you need to know to keep up with current trends.

So, WiFi, what is it?

Ever wondered what the ‘W’ or ‘F’ stood for? Sure! you’re not alone. WiFi stands for Wireless Fidelity and it’s a technology we’re all used to. It uses RF (radio, frequency) to transmit data from one device to another as simple as that (just, kidding. It’s more complicated). A key component in WiFi communication is the AP (access point) which broadcasts the wireless signals for your phone to connect. WiFi speed can vary in so many ways, a key thing to remember is that WiFi doesn’t necessarily give you access to the internet. It only gives you access to the internet if the AP is set to do that. Back to speed, theoretically under 802.11ac standard (don’t worry about it), WiFi can go up to 1300 Mbps (megabits per second) which is about 162 Mbps (megabytes per second) meaning you could transfer 1GB of data in about 6 seconds; sigh, if only we had all that speed.

Bluetooth is like WiFi in some ways but it’s mostly very different technology.

It’s a wireless technology standard for exchanging data between devices over a short distance. With a physical range of about 50m for Bluetooth 4 (very common in mobile devices) and about 4 times that range for Bluetooth 5 which is relatively new to the mobile space. Bluetooth requires very low energy making it energy efficient for transiting data over a short range. It can reach up to 2Mbps and 5Mbps for versions 4 and 5 respectively. Bluetooth is receiving great attention over the years due to the boom in IoT (Internet of things) and we can expect to see greater speeds in the future.

NFC (Near Field Communication) is a technology that most of the public rarely use.

It allows the exchange of a small amount of data between devices by simply placing them next to one another. It requires very little amount of power and needs to be extremely close to the receiving device for transmission to be successful. It’s mostly used by banks to allow merchants to receive payments by allowing the customer to touch a device with their smartwatch, phone or sometimes a card. There are other fun ways of using it too, you can set it to start playing your favorite playlist when you put your phone on a special spot on your table, just like magic.

Infrared, it’s rarely used in modern mobile devices. It works by allowing one device to send data to another through short bursts of light. It’s very important in some aspects of technology but in terms of mobile technology, it’s mostly used to provide a universal remote control for common household appliances on mobile devices.

Cellular technology, the definition for this is a little tricky.

It can be said to be a technology that allows transmission of voice and data through a mobile device without being connected to a physical or fixed link over radio waves. Cellular technology is very broad hence our focus will be on Mobile phone network. We are all very familiar with how mobile phone network works, we make calls, we receive calls, browse the web, etc. Under the hood, how these interactions are made possible is very complicated and not something we can cover in this article. What we can discuss is some (not all) of the common different digital technologies available, such as 4G, GPRS, 3G, etc.

Cellular telecommunications have seen several generations over the past decades; from 1G all the way to the most recent 5G. All these generations had their own aims and provided a different level of functionality. Each generation refers to a change in how the system worked with regards to speed, technology, frequency, latency, data capacity, etc.

The first generation (1G) was analog and supported voice only. It had a maximum speed of 2.4kbps, the technology was huge making mobile phones very big, it consumed a lot of power and provided poor voice quality.

The second generation (2G) took it further and added support for text messaging. It is based on GMS (Global System for Mobile Communication). Unlike 1G, it used digital signals for voice transmission. It has a maximum speed of 64kbps, although digital it is unable to handle complex data like videos. 2.5G saw some improvement it used GPRS, CDMA, and EDGE which could get speeds of up to 144kbps. 2.5G saw further improvements and brought in support for e-mail and web browsing, but at 144kbps I’ll pass.

The third-generation (3G) brought in higher data transmission rate, increased capacity and multimedia support. It is also based on GSM technology but improved to allow data capacity up to 14Mbps. It provides data services, access to video and support for Global Roaming. It can reach speeds of up to 3.1Mbps, it provides faster communications compared to the previous generations, broadband capabilities, streaming, and improved security. 3G mobile systems were called UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems) under which several protocols such as HSDPA (also known as H) with download speeds up to 14Mbps and HSDPA+ (also known as H+) with download speeds up to 168Mbps where introduced. There’s your difference.

The fourth generation (4G) integrates the functionality of 3G with support for wireless mobile internet which overcomes the limitations of 3G. It also increased bandwidth and capacity providing very fast speeds. Boasting speeds up to 1Gbps, it opened doors for high-quality video streaming, higher security and provides almost any service anywhere. It’s also known as LTE (Long Term Evolution) but actually, LTE is considered 4G.

5G, actively being developed is going to be a new revolution to the mobile market bringing with its increased speeds as we have never experienced. The focus is to provide complete wireless communication without limitation. It can reach colossal speeds of up to 10 Gbps (exact speed has not been finalized). This is like downloading an HD movie in seconds. Although still under testing some manufactures have included support for 5G in their devices.

There you have it, a brief summary of most of the mobile communications technologies we have now. I hope it helped. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel and subscribe to get basic yet fundamental tech information like these.