Cellular / Mobile Standards History

0G

MTS (1946 – US, Bell System)
IMTS (1969 – US, Bell System)
OLT (1966 – Norway)
AMTS (Japan)
ARP (1971 – Finland)
MTD (1971 – Sweden)

1G

1G cell phone technology encompassed analog standards introduced in the 1980s and continued until replaced by 2G digital cell phones.
NMT (1981- Nordic PTT’s)
AMPS / TACS / ETACS / JTAC (1983 – Bell Labs)
ARDIS / DataTAC (1983 – Motorola & IBM)
Mobitex (1986 – Ericsson)

2G

TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)
GSM (1990 – ETSI)
D-AMPS (1990 – IS-54, IS-136 – TIA)
PDC (1993 – ARIB)
PHS (1995 – NTT Labs)
IS-95/cdmaone (1995- Qualcomm/ANSI/TIA)
GPRS/EDGE (1997/2003 – ETSI/3GPP)
CDMA2000 (2000 – Qualcomm/3GPP2)

3G

Carrier 3G EVDO network currently averages 400 to 700 Kbps with peak rates up to 2 Mbps.
W-CDMA/ UMTS/FOMA (1991 NTT/3GPP)
EV-DO/IS-856 (2003 –Qualcomm/3GPP2)
UMTS-TDD (2007 – 3GPP)
UMA (2006 – 3GPP)
HSPA (2007 – 3GPP)

4G

4G communication at 100 Mbps while moving, and 1 Gbps while stationary
WiMAX (2006 – IEEE / WiMAX Forum)
LTE (~2009 – 3GPP)
UMB (~2009 – 3GPP2)