Information, tips and instructions

3GP files and 3G networks

What is 3G and why 3GP format was introduced

The key goal of 3G networks was to enable high-speed internet transfer over the mobile network. To make it simple 3G (or third generation) is just a set of mobile standards and technologies which make your cell phone transfer data with blazing speeds.

Average requirement for data transfer in 3G network is 384KBit/s which is quite high in comparison to GPRS 2G rate of 56 to 114KBit/s. Some 3G networks are capable to handle up to 2MBit/s transfer rates. Such incredible growth in speed required new file formats and software to handle more rich content on the mobile devices. That is one of the reasons why 3GPP introduced 3GP format.

Another reason is that unless some standrad is defined each software and hardware vendor tends to define its own format to deliver media content (just look at the media/file containers sections of this website). Having many media file formats makes it extremely difficult for users to deal with.

3GP vs. MP4

MP4 (MPEG-4) format already supported most of the requirements for 3G network file transfer including streaming over the internet, storing audio, video and textual content in one file, effective compression, etc. That is why it was decided to base 3GP format on MP4. And even now many cell phones name 3GP files as MP4.

But it doesn't mean though that all 3GP files could be just renamed and played as MP4. Your software have to support 3GP file format in order to play it. It is possible that if your rename 3GP file to MP4 it will be read by your player but it doesn't mean that they're equal it just means that your software can automatically recognize 3GP files and play them even though they have different file extension.