The Current State of 3G

January 10, 2007, 12:36 PM by Scott M. Fulton, III

Scott Fulton, BetaNews: When the iPhone was announced, a number of people expressed disappointment that it didn't support 3G. Some general-press journalists attending Macworld yesterday asked some members of the crowd on hand why they were disappointed, and in getting the response that there was no 3G...they learned there was something called "3G." Granted, we've been writing on 4G during CES week, but we asked our senior CES analyst, Sharon Fisher, to fill us in on what the iPhone is supposedly missing.

Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: 3G, for "third-generation," is an international standard for wireless broadband. Globally, it's called International Mobile Telecommunications 2000, or IMT2000; one of the common specifications for it is called Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, or WCDMA. In Europe, it's called Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, or UMTS. So you can see why most people just call it "3G."

What 3G gives you is access to video and faster access to data. The complication in the U.S. is that 3G uses a different spectrum and so wireless providers have had to build new networks on top of their existing ones. You need a special phone to take advantage of 3G services, but existing phones can continue to work over 3G.

Cingular, which is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., only has 3G available in major metropolitan areas. For example, it's not available in Idaho, where I live, at all, though it is available in Indianapolis. In New York State, it's only available in New York City. T-Mobile said in November that it's going to roll out 3G service to 100 major metropolitan areas in 2007. Verizon launched a network in 2002 that is available in 223 major metropolitan areas and 141 airports in the U.S.

However, 3G is much more heavily used in Europe and Asia. Since Steve Jobs said that 3G would be available in the future, and that the iPhone would be available worldwide in 2008, it's a safe bet that it will have 3G before worldwide deployment.

What the iPhone uses instead is EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) to transmit data, which is a sort of hybrid of 2G and 3G that was set up when 3G wasn't quite solidified. EDGE is slower than 3G. For example, EDGE provides data speeds between 75 Kbps and 135 Kbps, while 3G can be up to 700 Kbps. So it doesn't support simultaneous voice and data calls. But EDGE is much more widely available – for example, the Cingular EDGE network is available in more than 13,000 cities and towns and in areas along 40,000 miles of highways.

So while people criticized Apple for using EDGE instead of 3G, if iPhone had supported 3G and stayed with Cingular, people would have been very limited in where they could take advantage of it, and most likely would have been limited to EDGE functionality in most areas anyway.

Scott Fulton: It would have been an iPhone with an asterisk that said, "Not available in some areas."

Sharon Fisher: Still, there's a number of people who were very disappointed that the iPhone doesn't support 3G.

Scott Fulton: And in a nutshell, that's because...

Sharon Fisher: Because they feel WiFi isn't extensive enough to be useful.

Scott Fulton: It all begins with technology, but in the end, it's all about feelings. Thanks again, Sharon.