It was subsequently introduced throughout the world and made high-quality video streaming a reality for millions of consumers. Despite relatively sluggish speeds, 2G revolutionized the business landscape and changed the world forever.ĤG was first deployed in Stockholm, Sweden and Oslo, Norway in 2009 as the Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G standard. By the end of the era, speeds of 40 kbit/s were achievable and EDGE connections offered speeds of up to 500 kbit/s. This led to mass-adoption by consumers and businesses alike on a scale never before seen.Īlthough 2G’s transfer speeds were initially only around 9.6 kbit/s, operators rushed to invest in new infrastructure such as mobile cell towers. The analog past of 1G gave way to the digital future presented by 2G. For the first time, people could send text messages (SMS), picture messages, and multimedia messages (MMS) on their phones. For the first time, calls could be encrypted and digital voice calls were significantly clearer with less static and background crackling.īut 2G was about much more than telecommunications it helped lay the groundwork for nothing short of a cultural revolution. The second generation of mobile networks, or 2G, was launched under the GSM standard in Finland in 1991.
There was no turning back the success of 1G paved the way for the second generation, appropriately called 2G. Worse of all, calls weren’t encrypted, so anyone with a radio scanner could drop in on a call.ĭespite these shortcomings and a hefty $3,995 price tag ($9,660 in today’s money), the DynaTAC still managed to rack up an astonishing 20 million global subscribers by 1990. There was no roaming support between various operators and, as different systems operated on different frequency ranges, there was no compatibility between systems. Coverage was poor and sound quality was low. However, 1G technology suffered from a number of drawbacks. Other countries such as Canada and the UK rolled out their own 1G networks a few years later. In 1983, the US approved the first 1G operations and the Motorola’s DynaTAC became one of the first ‘mobile’ phones to see widespread use stateside. By 1984, NTT had rolled out 1G to cover the whole of Japan. The first generation of mobile networks – or 1G as they were retroactively dubbed when the next generation was introduced – was launched by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in Tokyo in 1979.