What is 3G?

3 generations of mobile phones have emerged so far, each successive generation more reliable and flexible than the last:

1. Analog: You could only easily use analogue cellular to make voice calls, and typically only in any one country.
2. Digital mobile phone systems added fax, data and messaging capabilities as well as voice telephone service in many countries.
3. Multimedia services add high speed data transfer to mobile devices, allowing new video, audio and other applications through mobile phones- allowing music and television and the Internet to be accessed through a mobile terminal.

With each new generation of technology, the services which can de deployed on them becomes more and more wide ranging and truly limited only by imagination. We are reaching that stage with 3G.

During the first and second generations different regions of the world pursued different mobile phone classicals, but are converging to a common classical for mobile multimedia called Third Generation (3G) that is based on CDMA technology. Europe pursued NMT and TACS for analog and GSM for digital, North America pursued AMPS for analog and a mix of TDMA, CDMA and GSM for digital. 3G will bring these incompatible classicals together, and the aim of this paper is to discuss the optimal migration path for mobile network operators to get from their existing 2G digital systems to the 3G world.

The Third Generation of mobile communications systems will soon by implemented. Following on the heals of analog and digital technology, the Third Generation will be digital mobile multimedia offering broadband mobile communications with voice, video, graphics, audio and other information.

Wired.com's iPhone 3G Survey Reveals Network Weaknesses (Wired News)

Wired.com asked iPhone 3G users around the world to test their speeds and enter their data on an interactive map to get a general idea of how 3G was performing -- where it's best and where it's worst -- in light of widespread complaints about the handset's network performance. More than 2,600 people participated and the results suggest that widespread data speed problems have more to do with ...

Canadian Firms Get Behind OpenMoko/FreeRunner (Slashdot)

mario writes "Now that the OpenMoko platform has stabilized enough to provide the OM2008 image (supporting the three major toolkits), things are starting to heat up. Linuxdevices is reporting on the start of a port of Devicescape's connect application. Koolu (another Canadian company) is also doing development for its W.E. phone (a branded FreeRunner). Which leads me to ask, Where are the ...

Google's Android Phone Gets Green Light From FCC (InformationWeek)

The HTC Dream will run Google's operating system as well as sport Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G capabilities over T-Mobile's networks.

Earthquake-Proof a Wine Cellar (Wired News)

A good Napa wine is priceless, but a Napa earthquake can potentially crush your wine collection like a grape. The nature of storing glass bottles suggests natural disaster undertones. It's an oenophiliac's nightmare. With a little DIY preparation, you can prevent a disaster by earthquake-proofing your wine cellar.