Background

Cellphones have been around for a long time, but they have only recently transitioned from analog technology to digital technology. In 1946, Bell Labs created the very first mobile telephone system, using MTS technology (Mobile Telephone System). The MTS telephones weighed 80 pounds and all calls were operator-assisted. This standard was used up until the 1980s in many parts of North America. It was replaced by IMTS (Improved Mobile Telephone System) which was basically a UHF/VHF radio that connected to the PSTN (Publicly Switched Telephone Network) system. This is referred to as 0G. After this came AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System.)

AMPS is referred to as 1G and was the premier analog technology up until the late 2000's. AMPS operated on the 800MHz band. In the '90s, cell phone cloning became a huge issue. To clone a phone, all you had to do was tune into the Reverse Channel (the channel the phone transmits data to the tower on), decrypt the ESN/MIN (Electronic Serial Number/Mobile Information Number) pair, and then program those numbers into an easily-programmed phone, and they had an exact copy of someone else's phone, making calls on their account.

After AMPS came GSM (which uses TDMA, or Time Division Multiple Access) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple-Access) technology, which are both 2G technologies. In the United States and nearly every other country on the planet, GSM is used. In Canada, CDMA (cdmaOne or IS-95, whichever sounds cooler). Both these technologies are fully digital and both bring with them dedicated internet data services. CDMA uses the EDGE or 1xRTT service for data, which has a superior data rate over GPRS (Global Packet Radio System) which is what GSM uses for data.