3 G - Third Generation of Mobile Phones

The third generation of mobile phone technologies will bring multimedia and high speed connections to handsets.

Currently, GSM handsets are referred to as 2G (or second generation) with the older, now obsolete technology as 1 G (using Analogue rather than digital communication).

3G is currently being tested and is not likely to be available until 2003.

The now available GPRS, is being dubbed as 2.5 G as it provides higher speeds than the standard GSM of 9.6KB/sec but not as high as the 2 M bits / sec that 3 G hopes to deliver.