Mobile wireless industry has started its technology creation, revelution and evolution since early 1970s. In the past few decades, mobile wireless technologies have experience 4 or 5 generations of technology revolution and evelution, namely from 0G to 4G. The cellular concept was intoduced in the 1G technology which made the large scale mobile wireless communicaton possible. Digital communication has replaced the analogy technology in the 2G which significantly improved the wireless communication quality. Data communication, in addition to the voice communication, has been the main focus in the 3G technologies and a converged network for both voice and data communication is emerging. With continued R&D, there are many killer application opportunities for the 4G as well as technological challengies. We briefly listed all the key technologies and protocols used in each generation of the mobile wireless communications in th following table.
| 0G | 0G refers to pre-cellular mobile telephony technology in 1970s. These mobile telephones were usually mounted in cars or trucks, though briefcase models were also made. |
| PTT | Push to talk |
| MTS | Mobile Telephone System |
| IMTS | Improved Mobile Telephone Service |
| AMTS | Advanced Mobile Telephone System |
| 0.5G | 0.5G is a group of technologies with improved feature than the basic 0G technologies. |
| Autotel/PALM | Autotel, or PALM (Public Automated Land Mobile) |
| ARP | Autoradiopuhelin, Car Radio Phone |
| HCMTS | High Capacity Mobile Telephone System |
| 1G | 1G (or 1-G) is the first-generation wireless telephone technology, cellphones. These are the analog cellphone standards that were introduced in the 1980s. |
| NMT | Nordic Mobile Telephone |
| AMPS | Advanced Mobile Phone System |
| TAGS | Total Access Communication System (TACS) is the European version of AMPS. |
| JTAGS | Japan Total Access Communication System |
| 2G | 2G (or 2-G) is the second-generation wireless telephone, which is based on digital technologies. 2G networks is basically for voice communications only, except SMS messaging is also available as a form of data transmission for some standards. |
| GSM | Global System for Mobile Communications |
| iDEN | Integrated Digital Enhanced Network |
| D-AMPS | Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System based on TDMA |
| cdmaOne | Code Division Multiple Access technology defined by IS-95 |
| PDC | Personal Digital Cellular |
| TDMA | Time Division Multiple Access |
| 2.5G | 2.5G is a group of bridging technologies between 2G and 3G wireless communication. It is a digital communication allowing e-mail and simple Web browsing, in addition to voice. |
| GPRS | General Packet Radio Service |
| WiDEN | Wideband Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network |
| 2.75G | 2.75G refer to the technologies which don't meet the 3G requirements but are marketed as if they do. |
| CDMA2000 1xRTT | CDMA-2000 is a TIA standard (IS-2000) that is an evolutionary outgrowth of cdmaOne. CDMA2000 with 1xRTT is slight weaker than 3G requirements. |
| EDGE | Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution |
| 3G | 3G stand for the third generation of wireless communication technologies, which support broadband voice, data and multi-media communications over wireless networks. |
| W-CDMA | Wideband Code Division Multiple Access |
| UMTS | Universal Mobile Telecommunications System |
| FOMA | Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access |
| CDMA2000 1xEV | More advanced CDMA2000 with 1xEV technology satisfy 3G requirements. |
| TD-SCDMA | Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access |
| 3.5G | The 3.5G generally refer to the technologies beyond the well defined 3G wireless/mobile technologies. |
| HSDPA | High-Speed Downlink Packet Access |
| 3.75G | The 3.75G refer to the technologies beyond the well defined 3G wireless/mobile technologies. |
| HSUPA | High-Speed Uplink Packet Access |
| 4G | 4G is the name of technologies for high-speed mobile wireless communications designed for new data services and interactive TV through mobile network. |
Related protocols: 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G, CDMA, GPRS, TDMA, UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA