Introduced in 2000, third generation (3G) refers to a generation of mobile telephony standards. It is mainly represented by the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and CDMA2000 standards, enabling speeds (from 2 to 42 Mb/s defined by the latest generation of UMTS networks: HSPA+ DC) that are much faster than with the previous generation, for example GSM.

The first mass-market applications for 3G are Internet access, watching videos and even television programmes and video telephony.