One of the most important features today, both in the choice of mobile phone or smartphone to buy, and in the choice of the telephone operator is the ability to connect data . Although for new smartphone phones, it is roughly tied to the standards of the moment, it is important to know what the various abbreviations 3G, GPRS, UMTS, EDGE and HSPA mean.
Knowing these differences, it is also possible to check whether, in the place where you live or where you use the phone more, these networks are active for fast internet connection from your mobile phone .
READ ALSO: Which mobile operator has the fastest internet in 3G and 4G LTE
Starting from the base, for information completeness, let's see what GSM means.
GSM ( Global System for Mobile Communications ) has replaced the first generation analogue mobile communication system for many years.
In Italy and Europe, the GSM networks are 2G (second generation) and the 2G data connection is the one called GPRS / EDGE .
3G networks are much faster and allow for UMTS connection.
4G / LTE networks even faster.
GSM networks operate in various frequency ranges for 2G and 3G networks, mainly on the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz band.
In countries like the USA and Canada, where these bands were already occupied, GSM 2G and 3G networks operate on the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz frequencies.
The quad band cell phones they use are compatible with all four bands and work worldwide.
The frequencies of 4G are 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz (2300, 2500, 3500 MHz) and very fast.
The G, preceded by the number (2G, 3G etc.), stands for generation and is linked to the data transmission speed.
Cell phones are like modems for normal internet connection.
Knowing the type of network used also means knowing the maximum reachable connection speed .
A mobile phone that supports fast networks allows you to surf faster from your mobile phone / smartphone and also to surf the internet from your computer, using your mobile phone as a modem (if they have the tethering or hotspot function).
The data transmission speeds in Megabits per second (Mbps) of the theoretically expressed mobile network connections are as follows:
NOTE: One megabit is 1024 kilobits (Kbps), 1 Megabit is worth 1/8 Megabytes.
With a speed of 1 megabit / sec, you should therefore ideally download 1 megabyte in about 8 seconds.
- 1G : The cell phones of the past, the analog ones that worked only to make calls (AMPS, NMT, TAC) had a theoretical data transmission speed of 14.4 kbps and therefore practically nothing.
- 2G : first digital GSM 9-14.4 kbps mobile phones.
- 2.5G is the evolution of GSM used today with packet data transmission.
2.5G phones connect to the internet in GPRS with speeds of 20-40 kpbs.
This speed was good for the first mobile websites, those that used WAP technology, now completely gone.
GPRS also allows the sending of MMS, those very expensive multimedia messages used to send photographs, which today are used less and less in favor of social networks.
With a GPRS network it is impossible to surf the Internet from the computer, using the phone as a modem, due to its slowness.
- 2.75G is the EDGE network which in Italy is supported only by Wind and Tim, with faster connection speeds than GPRS but much slower than UMTS (from 60 kbps to 180kbps)
Tim, but above all, Wind, has the great weakness of not having carried out an update of its networks to UMTS which, in fact, allows browsing on the internet from a mobile phone.
When connecting to the internet via mobile phone, if EDGE is available, an E should appear and sites should appear faster than the GPRS standard.
- 3G : digital broadband connection that identifies the UMTS ( Universal Mobile Telecommunications System ) connection with theoretical speed from 380-700 kbps.
UMTS is the only network used by H3G or Tre that introduced 3G in Italy and which, currently, perhaps together with Vodafone, guarantees the greatest coverage to connect to UMTS.
With UMTS it is finally possible to use the mobile phone as a modem to surf the internet from the computer and to download large quantities of data with an acceptable speed from the mobile phone.
If there is 3G coverage, there is also UMTS connectivity and internet can be used.
UMTS is used almost all over the world, although not by all telephone companies, as can be seen when traveling abroad and the cell phone goes roaming.
- 3.5G is identified with the HSPA, HSPA + and HSDPA connection .
When HSPA is written, it refers to HSDPA and HSUPA .
Theoretically, HSPA data can be downloaded at a rate of 14.4 Mbps, but current networks are capable of providing a maximum of 3.6 Mbps most of the time.
To reach theoretical speeds, telephone operators must update the cell software and transform existing downlinks to HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology and uplinks to HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) technology.
According to Wikipedia, only Wind did not perform this update.
HSPA + (HSPA Plus) is the advanced HSPA for mobile broadband networks.
HSDPA is worth a normal LAN connection and download speeds can even reach 200 Kbytes or more per second.
Even for HSDPA Tre and Vodafone they seem more equipped while Wind uses the less advanced version of HSPA with speeds up to 3.6 Mbps.
- 4G is identified with LTE technology and has speeds of up to 150 Mbps, although, in reality, they do not exceed 75 Mbps.
LTE only works with compatible devices and generally costs more.
To find the fastest mobile operator in Italy, by averaging for the various areas, you can rely on the Open Signal report, which compares Tre, Vodafone, Wind, TIM and other mobile operators in order to do a ranking for the fastest one.
As you can read in the 2017 report, the fastest mobile operator with the internet is Vodafone LTE.
To make measurements yourself, there are test apps for the cellular data network such as OpenSignal or nPerf itself.
Remember that to use Speedtest correctly you need to follow the guide to check the real internet connection speed
In another article it is written how to check the 2G and 3G coverage of the mobile internet network in Italy and worldwide, for each telephone operator.
In conclusion it can be said that modern smartphones support all connections, both slow and fast ones, including LTE 4G, so as to be compatible with the available networks that the different operators offer.
The speeds for mobile operators are also valid for internet sticks, as well as for mobile phones.
When going abroad for roaming, in addition to the fact that connecting from the internet costs a lot, you will notice how rare, in many countries, the LTE connection is.
Taking into account all that we have said, the internet connection speed for a mobile network is however a much less interesting parameter when it comes to smartphones and mobile phones, because it is difficult to use the mobile connection to download very large files and because the vision streaming video in 3G or 4G is fine anyway.
For this reason, personally, I do not recommend subscribing to a 4G connection, if it costs more than a 3G.
