The Internet has become the new oxygen. From shopping to banking services, from communication to studies, the Internet has become a part of our lives. With high-speed internet connection, you can access unlimited services and information. But it was not the same since forever, it has been rectified over decades. Its journey is memorable and glorious too.

There was a time when the printing press was introduced to the world in the 15th century in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg. Technology entered into people’s lives and they felt that a cumbersome process of writing newspapers or books by hand can be done easily and smoothly. Technology has not only saved a lot of time but also made things easier. From starting with a simple wired telephone that was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1976, we have come a long way and entered the era of smartphones. Smartphones are introducing new technologies every next day. 

A major breakthrough innovation in cellular phones is referred to as ‘generation’. In the first generation of mobile phones, ‘analog voice information’ was introduced which worked via amplification modulation. Such 1G phones were introduced in the 1970s. The maximum speed of 1G was 2.4 kbps.

The 1G or first-generation technology was very soon replaced by the second generation or 2G technology in 1991 in Finland for the first time, that was based on ‘digital voice encoding’. They worked on two radio networks namely CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobiles). These both networks worked for transferring the calls of mobile phones.  It enabled people to share text as well as multimedia messages (MMS) such as pictures.

A big boost in the technology or a watershed moment was the introduction of 3G technology which is still used widely by people. For the first time people experienced the ‘video call’. Mobile broadband came into the limelight in which people used the internet through portable modem or tablet or smartphones. The maximum speed calculated in the 3G network was 2 Mbps. 

3G technology uses the frequency of 1.8 to 2.5 GHz. It is a wide area cell-based network architecture. LTE (Long Term Evolution) facilitated downloading speed of 100 Mbps and uploading speed of 50 Mbps. It rectifies its errors using the turbo codes. Turbo codes are based on transmission of the initial messages in 3 copies in which some are coded and some are raw. 3G switching technique is packet switching, that means the message is broken into smaller packets. 3G network capacitates for high-speed internet whereas VoLTE (Voice over Long-Term Evolution) enables high quality voice call along with high-speed data. Nowadays, VoLTE is prevalent all over the world. 

With the commencement of 4G technology in 2008, which is currently prevalent in the world, it is far better and more efficient than 3G technology. People became comfortable with high-speed internet that enabled them to play online games and watch videos in HD (High Dimension). 4G is said to have the internet speed of 100 Mbps maximum. Although in countries like India, people are experiencing an average 4G internet speed of 20 Mbps. 

4G technology uses the frequency of 2 to 8 GHz. It uses the technology which is cell-based for a combination of WAN and WLAN. 4G corrects its errors using the concatenated codes. These codes are made up of two or more simpler codes that can achieve better performance. The switching technique in 4G is both packet switching and message switching. Message switching was largely used in Telex, which was widely used before the SWIFT Payment system.

With the introduction of 5G technology, the internet speed is said to touch the limit of 20 Gbps. 5G works in 3 bands – high, medium and low. 

Although 5G technology is often put under suspicion of causing health problems, no testified claims have been made yet. 

Countries like the USA, South Korea have started using the 5G services. India is also trying to use this technology. Bharti Airtel has announced recently to be the first company to provide 5G services in India. In the recent budget announced in February, India’s Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman said that a spectrum auction will be held in the year 2022 to ease the rollout of services of 5G mobile within 2022-23 by private telecom providers.

Conclusion 

In 2008, Android 1.0 was launched, now we are using phones with Android version 12 and 13. From 1G to now entering 5G, we see that technology keeps evolving with time and needs of people. 3G can be said to be a major technological advancement because it enabled various internet-based things such as PoS machines, videos calls, high speed data transfer and many more. 4G has accelerated the internet speed and has given a better experience of using high speed internet.