Tech Thursday- More Detail on 3G

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3G, or third generation, operated at about 2mbps (2 megabits per second), which wasn’t quite broadband, but certainly was an improvement upon dial-up internet. It provided your basic smartphone functions like voice, email, web browsing and location services. While 2mbps may sound relatively fast, keep in mind that these numbers only reflect the maximum performance under optimal conditions, so it’s a little bit like your Uncle Louis who huffs and puffs his way up the stairs but insists he can squat three-fifty with a proper warm up and a shot of Monster.   

 The nice thing is that when those optimal standards improve, network performance tends to improve to a degree that’s proportional to the increase in theoretical performance. So this would be like Uncle Louis showing up next Thanksgiving claiming that he can squat five-hundred pounds. It’s still unlikely to ever be witnessed, but it probably means he can at least make it up the stairs now. The one caveat is that your device has to be compatible with these new standards, and if you’re in an area with sub-optimal signal, you might find that your network effective speed is reduced or even degraded to using an earlier generation network.