Mobile Device Networks - CompTIA A+ 220-1201 - 1.3

you have a mobile phone, you probably also refer to it as your cell phone. That term cell comes from the cellular networks that we use to be able to communicate using these phones. These operate by having antennas that separate areas of the land into what we're calling cells. They're antennas that allow us coverage inside of those cells

using a number of different frequencies. And all of that together makes up our cellular networks. These cellular networks provide both voice and data communication and you get to decide how that information is used by your mobile device. For example, you can turn on and off the cellular data functionality and perhaps only use this as voice

communication. Or you may be familiar with airplane mode that disables all of the communication on this device and then you can pick and choose which ones you'd like to turn on. Cellular technology really started taking off with 3G technology in 1998. 3G allowed us to send and receive larger amounts of data over these networks,

which means that we were able to increase the capabilities of our mobile devices. This allowed us to have GPS functionality, which we'll talk more about in a moment. We have mobile television, video on demand, video conferencing, and other data related services all enabled thanks to 3G. We then upgraded from 3G into the 4G

technologies. Sometimes we refer to these as long-term evolution or LTE. 4G is based on a technology called GSM, which is the global system for mobile communications. Sometimes you may hear this referred to as edge or the enhanced data rates for GSM evolution. This allowed us to have bandwidths up to 150 megabits per second. So, we were able to