Wireless Local Area Network WLAN and Wi-Fi
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extensive variety of multimedia services at a slow speed up to 114 Kbps. The type of services is legislated by an Access Point
Name APN which de fine services for example Wireless Ap-
plication Protocol WAP access, Multimedia Messaging Ser- vice MMS, Short Message Service SMS, Point-to-focus
PTP and Internet access.
3 G 1.8 Ghz: Third Generation technology that is an im- provement on the earlier 2.5 G version and has a maximum
speed of 14.4 Mbps. The main characteristics of 3G are mobile TV broad casting and video calling. There are diverse interface
networking systems that are accepted by the ITU International Telecommunications Union IMT-2000 as 3 G networks. The
prominent ones are Mobile WiMAX and UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System that is otherwise called
W-CDMA where W signifies Wideband. The Mobile WiMAX is named under Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Ac-
cess and is developed from the IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wire- less Access BWA standard. UMTS is a substantially more
developed and generally used technology and is an immediate upgrading of 2.5 G that basically developed from previous ac-
cessible mobile technologies. An enhanced adaptation generally denoted as 3.5 G was introduced in 2006 as High Speed Down-
link Packet Access HSDPA which can support over 20 Mbps. In the year 2012, this is expected to be upgraded to 4 G with
100 Mbps and upgraded security features. In between the 2.5 G and 3 G version there is a technology frequently known as 2.75
G. Although, this version is not regularly used but most people are familiar with CDMA2000 and EDGE Enhanced Data rates
for GSM Evolution. These are developed from CDMA1900 and GSM Phase 2+. However, these versions are often wrongly
categories as 3 G because their expanded information capaci- ties supports 2.5 G systems.
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PHS 1.9 Ghz: Personal Hand phone System is popularly used in Japan only because of its low power usage and does not re-
quire a SIM card. The system is primarily intended for its voice calls with data support until 256 Kbps. Nevertheless, PHS is
gradually being phrase out by 3 G networks.