Who decides what G it is going to be?

[Vivaldi]

1G

2G / 2.5G

3G / 3.5G

4G / 4.5G

5G

6G

7G

8G

Blah blah blah G

How do they decide that it is an another G, no more the previous G? Does Each major speed difference has the name of the next G?

They speed up and call it the next G?

[SueShe]

The 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), together with the ITU (International Telecommunication Union in Geneva, Switzerland) are instrumental in creating the rules for communications, together with some key contributors include companies like half a dozen smartphone companies which I will not mention here so as not to make advertisement.

They establish the rules by which the next generation communication standards should apply and what new technology the new standard should contain.

Current predictions suggest that 6G is somewhere in the region of eight years away. Early commercial deployment has been estimated at either 2028 or 2029, followed by a wider rollout sometime after 2030.

[Vivaldi]

Turkey is at 4 and Half G :D

[Vivaldi]

4 and a half G will contunie here

[SueShe]

They are working hard to get to 5G but don't worry, they will make the jump directly from 4G to 6G in 2030. Don't despair!

[MrOracle]

@sueshe
Good answer!

It's also helpful to know that the goal of moving from 4G to 5G wasn't to increase speed - though it did increase it some - the main goal was to be able to support FAR more users than 3G and 4G were designed to handle. 5G effectively replaced 3G (and in some cases also 2G), and is able to make MUCH more efficient usage of the frequency spectrum than 3G could, which means the same radio frequencies can now handle far more users.

This was vitally important because there's a huge and quickly growing number of Internet-connected cars, robots, drones, and many other things that depend on mobile data connectivity. If we'd have stayed on 3G, not only would the connections be slower, but we'd have literally run out of the capability to add new devices to the network already.

Think about what happens when the average person goes from having 1 (or even just a fraction of one) Internet connection (because multiple people are sharing a single home connection) to having 4 or 5 separate connections - that causes an exponential growth in connections that need to be supported.

[SueShe]

@MrOracle Thanks for your update and detailed explanations.

[Vivaldi]

It is called 4.5G here. 4 and a half.

Mobile phone internet says 4.5G when mobile internet is open.

[rachel776]

Gary

[BetaBucks]

I appreciate the double meaning with your username. And the answer for tech is basically the thought leaders of the industry dictating the terminology. Some if it is irrelevant.

[DrPepper12]

They use western scales like EGBDF. It's good they don't have flats and sharps like they used to!

[Vivaldi]

In Turkey we use 4 and a half G.

[Anonymous]

I decide