{"id":5231,"date":"2011-01-17T14:27:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T19:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/?p=5231"},"modified":"2011-01-17T14:27:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T19:27:42","slug":"2g-3g-4g-and-everything-in-between-an-engadget-wireless-primer-engadget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/2g-3g-4g-and-everything-in-between-an-engadget-wireless-primer-engadget\/","title":{"rendered":"2G, 3G, 4G, and everything in between: an Engadget wireless primer &#8212; Engadget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/4g_cell.jpg\" alt=\"4g_cell.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"270\" style=\"float:right;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe nowadays, but in a simpler time, cellphones really were called &#8220;cell phones,&#8221; not dumbphones, smartphones, feature phones, or superphones. They bulged in your pocket &#8212; if they fit in your pocket at all, that is &#8212; and they made calls. That&#8217;s it. None of this social networking, messaging, browsing, Instagramming, Flash 10.1 nonsense. They didn&#8217;t upload 5 megapixel photos to Flickr, and they most certainly didn&#8217;t turn into wireless hotspots.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, those bleak days are mercifully behind us now &#8212; but as carriers around the world start to light up a promising new generation of high-speed wireless networks, things are beginning to get a little confusing. Just what is &#8220;4G,&#8221; anyway? It&#8217;s one higher than 3G, sure, but does that necessarily mean it&#8217;s better? Why are all four national carriers in the US suddenly calling their networks 4G? Is it all the same thing? Answering those questions requires that we take a take a little walk through wireless past, present, and future&#8230; but we think it&#8217;s a walk you&#8217;ll enjoy. <\/p>\n<p>First things first: &#8220;G&#8221; stands for &#8220;generation,&#8221; so when you hear someone refer to a &#8220;4G network,&#8221; that means they&#8217;re talking about a wireless network based on fourth-generation technology. And actually, it&#8217;s the definition of a &#8220;generation&#8221; in this context that has us in this whole pickle in the first place; it&#8217;s the reason why there&#8217;s so much confusion. But more on that in a bit &#8212; first, let&#8217;s take a trip down memory lane into the primordial ooze that gave rise to the first generation way back in the day.<\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2011\/01\/17\/2g-3g-4g-and-everything-in-between-an-engadget-wireless-prim\/\">View the rest of the article at 2G, 3G, 4G, and everything in between: an Engadget wireless primer<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe nowadays, but in a simpler time, cellphones really were called &#8220;cell phones,&#8221; not dumbphones, smartphones, feature phones, or superphones. They bulged in your pocket &#8212; if they fit in your pocket at all, that is &#8212; and they made calls. That&#8217;s it. None of this social networking, messaging, browsing, Instagramming, Flash <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/2g-3g-4g-and-everything-in-between-an-engadget-wireless-primer-engadget\/\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[23,126,19],"tags":[1840],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5231"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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