Differences between 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G (in tabular form)

	2G	3G	4G	5G
Release	GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications)	IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunications-2000)	LTE (Long-Term Evolution)	IMT-2020 (International Mobile Telecommunications-2020)
Year of Introduction	Early 1990s	Early 2000s	Late 2000s	2020 onwards
Data Transfer Speed	Up to 384 kbps (2.5G)	Up to 2 Mbps (3G)	Up to 100 Mbps (4G LTE)	Up to 10 Gbps (5G)
Technology	FDMA/TDMA	CDMA/WCDMA	OFDMA	Advanced OFDMA/5G NR (New Radio)
Bandwidth	Narrowband	Broadband	Broadband	Ultra-wideband
Latency	High (100-500 ms)	Medium (50-100 ms)	Low (30-50 ms)	Ultra-low (1-10 ms)
Spectrum Efficiency	Low	Medium	High	Very High
Connection Density	Low	Medium	High	Extremely High
Use Cases	Voice calls, basic texting	Web browsing, video streaming	HD video streaming, online gaming	Smart cities, IoT, autonomous vehicles, 8K video streaming, VR/AR
Network Architecture	Circuit-Switched Networks	Circuit-Switched and Packet-Switched Networks	Packet-Switched Networks	Cloud-native, Virtualized Networks
Security	Basic	Enhanced	Enhanced	Enhanced, greater emphasis on security and privacy
Energy Efficiency	Moderate	Moderate	Improved	Enhanced, lower power consumption
Deployment Coverage	Widespread	Widespread	Widespread	Expanding, not yet widespread