MOBILE GENERATION

Mobile Generation

Mobile Generation

Introduction

“Mobile networking” refers to technology that can support voice and/or data network connectivity using wireless, via a radio transmission solution. The well-known application of mobile networking is the Mobile Phone.

3G wireless networks are capable of transferring data at high speeds of up to 384Kbps. Average speeds for 3G network will range between 64Kbps and 384Kbps, quite a jump when compared to common wireless data speeds in the U.S that are often slower than a 14.4Kb modem. 3G is considered high speed or broadband mobile Internet access, and as time to come, 3G networks are expected to reach speeds of more than 2Mbps. In order to know the evolution of 3G, it might be interesting to get an idea on the history on the revolution of mobile networking.

History of Mobile Networking System

First Generation (1G)

The first generation of mobile cellular telecommunications system appeared in the 1980s. The first generation was not the beginning of mobile communication, as there were several mobile radio networks in existence before then, but they are not cellular systems. The capacity of those early networks was much lower than that of mobile networks. And the support for mobility was weak (Franziner, 2003).

In mobile cellular networks the coverage area is divided into small cells, and thus the same frequencies can be used several times in the network without disturbing interference. This increase the system capacity. The first generation used analog transmission techniques for traffic, which was almost entirely voice. There was no dominant standard but several competing ones. The most successful standards were Nordic(TACS), and Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS). Note that although the world is now busy moving into 3G networks, these first-generation networks, and many existing networks are growing (Buckley, 2000).

First Generation networks ( Extract from “Introduction To 3G Mobile Communication”)

System

Countries

TACS/ETACS

Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, China, Hong Kong, Ireland,

Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Macao, Malaysia, Malta, Philippines,

Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, UAE, UK

AMPS

Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Burma,

Cambodia, Canada, China, Georgia, Guam, Hong Kong,

Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia,

Nauru, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea,

Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka,

Tajikistan, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, USA,

Vietnam, Western Samoa

Second Generation (2G)

2G evolve in the year 1991, in Finland. Second generation mobile network system use digital radio transmission. Thus the boundary line between first and second generation systems is obvious: it is the analog/digital split. The second generation networks have much higher capacity than the first generation systems. One frequency channel is simultaneously divided among several users (either by code or time division). Hierarchical cell structures- in which the service area is covered by macro and picocells - enhance the system capacity even further (Kashlak, R.J., Chandran, R., Di Benedetto, 1998).

There are four main standards for second-generation systems, Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications and its derivatives, Digital AMPS (D-AMPS), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA {IS-95}) and Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) GSM uses the 900-MHz band is by far the most successful and widely used 2G system. PDC was eventually adopted by Japan (Sarkar, ...