What does E / H / G mean for smartphones? Simply explained

Wondering what E, H and G mean on a smartphone? These characters indicate which network standard you are currently connected to

What E, H and G mean on a smartphone

If you have switched on mobile data on your smartphone, characters such as E, H and G will be displayed in the status bar of your smartphone. This indicates the mobile phone standard you are currently using on the network.

• G stands for GPRS (General Radio Packet Service). This network standard is an extension of GSM and made it possible for the first time to send MMS and access mobile websites. With a speed of around 100 kbit/s, this is the slowest mobile communications standard.

• E is the abbreviation for EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution). This is an extension of GPRS, which is faster than GPRS at a maximum of 220 kbit/s.

• 3G means that you are using the UMTS network. UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) allows a surfing speed of up to 384 kbit/s.

• H stands for HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and is the faster successor to 3G. An even faster extension of H is H+. A speed of up to 45 MBit/s is possible here. This means that the UMTS network with its further developments is more than 100 times faster than GPRS.

However, you should no longer see
• 3G, H or H+ on your smartphone. This is because the UMTS network was completely dismantled in 2021. The frequencies freed up as a result will be used to expand LTE and, above all, the current 5G network standard.

Current network standards: 4G or 5G

Since the 3G network has been switched off, you are probably connected to the 4G or 5G network with your smartphone.

• You are connected to the 4G network if LTE or 4G is displayed on your smartphone. Speeds of up to 150 MBit/s can be achieved. Surfing and streaming content in high quality is therefore no problem.

• 4G+ is an extension of 4G and is slightly faster than the original LTE standard at up to 450 MBit/s.

• 5G stands for the fifth generation mobile network and is the latest mobile standard. Here, data transfer rates are up to 10 times faster than with 4G.

• 5G is currently being expanded. However, the network should already be available in most cities. However, in order to use 5G, you also need a smartphone that supports 5G.