2G 3G 3.5G 4G 5G | How does mobile broadband work?

Who doesn’t want faster broadband speed? But the main problem is, this line is tied to the telephone line in your home. So, when you travel by bus or train, or when you stay outside your home, the broadband does not help you much. What can you do in this circumstances? Give thanks to the ultimate developed cell phone network. Using this network, you can get access to mobile broadband and wireless Internet by using your mobile phone. But do you know, "What is Mobile Broadband and how does this mobile broadband work?" Let’s look upon the matter.

Actually, mobile broadband works upon an easy idea. But it is a little bit difficult to describe. So, in this post, I will try to provide you idea on both common and technical issues.

Broadband on cellphone network:

Mobile phone is created on the inspiration of land lines. When you say about landline, a connection is created between your phone set and your caller’s phone set. It is called circuit switching. When you talk in land line, your line remains blocked completely. As a result, you cannot use it for any other purposes. But if there is a broadband line in your telephone line, it works in a completely different way. In this case, your telephone line is divided into two parts. You can call in one line through the circuit switching which you did before. Another line can always exchange digital data using packet switching method.

The former cell phones used to provide mobile broadband with circuit switching technology. It was an inefficient method and the internet speed was very slow. But later, the service providers develop their network technology. They start using packet switching technology. As a result, the third-generation mobile network or 3G is created. In 3G, data speed was as slow as the slow speed landline broadband (350 kbps to 2mbps). But with time, engineers brought further improvement to mobile network and made the packet switching method more efficient and more suitable for data flow.

So, 3G gets High-speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA, which is also known as 3.5G. This mobile network is 5 times faster than 3G. However, 4G has arrived and many countries have started taking the benefits of this technology. 4G has already started and it is expected that all countries will be able to use it very soon.

How do you use mobile broadband?

You can use mobile broadband in two ways. If you have a smart phone, you can easily use mobile broadband. Music download, video download, chatting, email everything is possible there. Here, mobile network providers apply a specific amount of charge for a certain amount of data (for MG or GB).

Another way of getting online is to use a small ‘Dongle’ in your laptop. In this way, you can always be connected to broadband wherever you go. Dongle is a small and light-weight device which is connected to laptop with USB port. To run this device in your PC there is a software which is automatically installed when the device is connected to the PC.

How useful is mobile broadband? :

Wherever you go or stay, if you think of using broadband, there is no doubt that it could be the ideal means. You will get 3.5G or 4G signal and use broadband of good speed anywhere. You will get at least 3G signal where 3.5G or 4G is absent. In 3G signal, perhaps the speed of the internet may be 350kbps to 2Mbps, but it is more than 7 times faster than dial-up land line connection. However, this speed depends on the country or position you are staying in.

Mobile broadband has some disadvantages along with advantages and you may face it. This technology works using cell phone network. So, when you travel by train or bus, your internet can connect and disconnect constantly. Moreover, if the necessary signal is not available in your location, it can switch to 3G from 3.5G or to 2G from 3G. This may prevent you from getting regular internet speed.

2G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, 5G:

You have already known the general information of mobile broadband. If you are interested to know more about these things, paragraphs of your choice started from now. Let’s know about 2G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, 5G mobile network in details.

Analog cell phones (1G):

Mobile telephone technology came into market in the 1970. People could talk to each other using their mobile handset then from anywhere. Now, if everyone calls using the same frequency band, the calls were likely to be confused with one another and the calls failed. So, each call was divided into separate frequency band so that different persons could call separately using different lines.

This system was called Frequency-division multiple access or FDMA. And in this method, the former cell phones worked. FDMA phones worked similar to land line phones and it was called first-generation phone or 1G.

Digital cell phone (2G):

In FDMA technology, the main problem was, if people of one area would start talking at a time, it was not possible to provide different broadband for each person. So, engineers invented new method and they changed the total system from analog to digital. In digital technology, samples of human voice is taken and voice is converted to number code.

In FDMA, each call was sent in a separate frequency band. But this time, engineers invented a completely new method. Without using separate frequency band for each call, they took a telecasting method of a call in separate band for some time. And this technology is called TDMA (Time-division multiple access). Each of the GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) based mobile networks uses this technology. And these phones are called 2G phone.

High speed digital cell phone (3G):

TDMA technology is not 100% perfect. If the phone users increase quickly, call quality becomes bad in this method also. And to provide so many calls, network fails. So this time, engineers started to think again how to bring more users together into the system. And this time they invented the system called CDMA (Code-division Multiple Access). In fact, CDMA is not a completely new technology. It is made of FDMA and TDMA elements.

In this system, each call is converted to separate codes. In these codes, all kinds of information such as where is the calls coming from and going to are provided. This system works by using packet switching method, a methods which is useful for making any connections. By involving another system, common CDMA has made another developed system which is called Wide-band CDMA or WCDMA. WCDMA is the example of third-generation mobile network or 3G. 3G network is also called UMTS.

Broadband cell phone (3.5G):

In general, for making a call and sending SMS, CDMA is ideal network. But it is not ideal for internet access. However, with internet access, two works are continued together. Your computer always send request to server and accept pages from the server. And every time you download more data from the server than you upload.

The high-speed land line broadband in your home has two connections. With one, you talk and another one uploads and downloads data. Since separate lines are used for two different works, its speed and efficiency is more. However, there is no reason to worry. To remove this problem in CDMA, HSDPA has been brought. Basically, this network has been improved to provide high-speed internet.

High speed broadband cell phone (4G):

HSDPA is already able to supply 24-42 Mbps data. But, the latest 4G technology is committed to provide 50-100 Mbps data. So, 4G is 10-15 times faster than 3G. But, which technology made 4G more developed than 3G or 3.5G? There are several things which have made 4G more developed. One notable matter is to change CDMA to OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency-division Multiple Access). It is more efficient and it can create better frequency spectrum.

In this technology, each signal is sent in different bits and codes by separating it. And it must be sent using different frequency. It can send and receive packet very quickly. And for this advanced technology, it is the most developed network technology now.

The next generation (5G):

Of course, we cannot stay with 4G forever. The cellphone maker companies are bringing changes to their smartphones every year. For this reason, network technology needs to be improved to get better, more download speed and internet services. The main target of 5G technology is to get together more people and internet of things.

Hopefully friends, you have known about mobile broadband from the conservative level to advanced level. Now, it is clear how they work and how one is more advanced than others. I hope that today’s information was much more important to you. Don’t forget to comment and share.