3G Technology

International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000), better known as 3G or 3rd Generation, is a family of standards for mobile telecommunications fulfilling specifications by the International Telecommunication Union, which includes UMTS, and CDMA2000 as well as the non-mobile wireless standards DECT and WiMAX. While the GSM EDGE standard also fulfils the IMT-2000 specification, EDGE phones are typically not branded 3G. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Compared to 2G and 2.5G services, 3G allows simultaneous use of speech and data services and higher data rates (at least 200 kbit/s peak bit rate to fulfill to IMT-2000 specification). Today's 3G systems can in practice offer up to 14.0 Mbits/s (1.75 MB/s) on the downlink and 5.8 Mbit/s (0.725 MB/s) on the uplink.