2G cellular technology made a significant change to this system, by changing over to a fully digital audio stream. A new protocol called General Packet Radio Switching (GPRS) was responsible for these improvements on 2G networks. Among the benefits of this change was the new ability to send text messages, rather than just voice calls. These messages were limited to a size of 1120 bits, which 7 bits being used for each character. This resulted in the well-recognized message limit of 160 characters. When launched, 2G supported transfer speeds of up to 9.2kbps. It used the 1.8GHz and 900MHz bands.<ref name="giffgaff">https://www.giffgaff.com/blog/h-5g-lte-a-g-e-new-cell-network-alphabet/</ref> | 2G cellular technology made a significant change to this system, by changing over to a fully digital audio stream. A new protocol called General Packet Radio Switching (GPRS) was responsible for these improvements on 2G networks. Among the benefits of this change was the new ability to send text messages, rather than just voice calls. These messages were limited to a size of 1120 bits, which 7 bits being used for each character. This resulted in the well-recognized message limit of 160 characters. When launched, 2G supported transfer speeds of up to 9.2kbps. It used the 1.8GHz and 900MHz bands.<ref name="giffgaff">https://www.giffgaff.com/blog/h-5g-lte-a-g-e-new-cell-network-alphabet/</ref> |