Mobile Phone Technology

3G A faster digital network for 2000

A 3G smart phone with all the features.




3G was designed to be the new mobile network of the new millennium. 3G was a data-only network, it did not provide a phone network; this was still provided by 2G. There was a large demand for a multimedia data network; 2G was largely text-based. 2G Edge had squeezed a lot out of an older network design. The time had come to build a new network based on improvements to the 2G technologies that had stood the test of time.

The licenses for 3G were sold in the UK in April 2000 to five companies

  • Vodafone
  • O2
  • Orange
  • T-Mobile
  • Three
These companies paid a substantial amount of money for a licence — £22.5 billion in total. The size of these payments demonstrates the confidence these companies had in mobile phone technology.

From the early days of 3G, a number of improvements were made, culminating in the final version, which included HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access). The network predominantly ran at 2100 MHz, providing coverage of 3 km — less than the 2G network. This meant that 2G and 3G co-existed throughout the lifetime of 3G. 2G was used for phone calls, with 3G dropping back to 2G when the 3G connection was too weak.

By 2010, 3G was no longer the current generation of mobile phone technology; 4G was just around the corner, and was designed to deliver the mobile internet much more effectively. The end of 2025 saw the end of 3G; the network is being switched off and overtaken by 4G in terms of both coverage and capability. Anyone with a 3G phone, of which there are few remaining, found their phone dropping back to 2G. By autumn 2025, Vodafone, Three, and EE had switched off their 3G networks; O2 followed suit by the end of the year. Now the 3G networks have been switched off, the frequencies will be reallocated to 4G.

deepl.com [AI] has been used to improve the text in this description