As the first 5G smartphones are nearing launch, we thought it was the right time to trace back the various “Gs” – the generations of mobile telephony and data.
Note: we’ll focus on the GSM side of things, GSM and CDMA converged on 4G technology, anyway.
2G: Circuit Switched Data
CSD was the earliest digital method to deliver Internet connectivity to a mobile phone (1G or AMPS was an analog system). Data speeds were fairly slow, typically 9.6Kbps on GSM and 14.4Kbps on CDMA networks.
Still, it was more than fast enough to handle the tiny WAP sites, send and receive email and even…
