BSCS 409 (WIRELESS MOBILE COMUNICATION) ASSIGNMENT

GINSON MURIMI
ICT-G-1583-21
Generations of Cellular Communication
Technologies Mobile communication technology has advanced at a very rapid pace over the
last five decades. The gradual technology improvements over the last four decades can be
roughly demarcated into four generations. Each generation essentially provides higher data
rate and additional capabilities. The figure in the notes does not show the data rates of
technologies before GSM, since these were analog techniques that did not support the data
communications facility. The fourth generation (4G) of technology provides a substantial order
of magnitude improvements in data speeds, but is not yet widely implemented. The important
characteristics of the various generations of cellular mobile systems. As can be seen from the
table, each passing generation of mobile cellular system brought about significant
advancements to the technology, causing the quality of the services to improve and the
number of service offerings to increase, and at the same time the cost to the customer to drop
drastically. We briefly discuss these different generations of mobile cellular communication
systems in the following.
First generation
The first generation (1G) cellular system was designed in the late 1960s, but was commercially
deployed in the early 1980s. The first commercial 1G system in the United States was known as
Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS). It became operational in 1982 and supported only
voice calls. This was a completely analog system. In an analog system, analog signals are
transmitted by modulating them on a higher frequency carrier signal, without first converting
the signal into digital form through quantization. In a completely analog system, it is difficult to
support SMS and other data services. Also, the signals from different users cannot be
intermixed on the same channel, and have to be transmitted in clearly separated channels.
Second generation
As already pointed out, the 1G technology had many disadvantages. The major drawback was
the small number of simultaneous calls that could be made and the high risk of call drops
during handoffs. Calls in 1G were expensive because of the inherent inefficient usage of the
bandwidth spectrum and hence very few could afford to use a cell phone. Further, the 1G
networks were not capable of providing several useful services such as caller identity and SMS.
The disadvantages of 1G systems were overcome by the second generation (2G) cellular
systems.The 2G systems encoded voice and other information digitally before transmitting
them. Digital transmission has many advantages over analog transmissions. These include noise
immunity and better bandwidth utilizations. The 2G system offered significant advancements in
the evolution of the mobile cellular technologies. Hence the 2G technology rapidly replaced the
1G technology because of the drastic reductions in the cost of phone calls and availability of a
wider range of services coupled with substantial improvements in the quality of services. Also,
SMSs became possible.
However, we must remember that the 2G technology is in many respects an extension of the
1G system and many of the principles involved in a 1G system also apply to 2G. For example,
they both use the same cell structure. However, there are many differences. For example, they
use different signal modulation techniques. 2G uses CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) as channel access technology, while 1G used FDMA.The
2G mobile system deployment started in the 1990s, and two competing standards existed. In
North America, the IS-95 standard was adopted which used Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA) and could multiplex up to 64 calls per channel in the 800 MHz band. In Europe and
elsewhere, operators adopted the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) standard,
which used Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) to multiplex up to 8 calls per channel in the
900 and 1800 MHz bands.The first commercial deployment of Global System for Mobile
Communication (GSM) was done in 1992. It supported higher voice quality and provided data
services such as SMS and e-mail. We will discuss the GSM system in more detail, later in this
chapter. In 1993, another 2G system, known as CDMAone, was standardized and commercially
deployed in South Korea and Hong Kong in 1995, followed by the United States of America in
1996.
2.5 Generation
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is an extension of GSM and is considered to be the 2.5
generation technology. As indicated by the name, it is based on packet switching compared to
circuit switching used in 2G. This was a significant improvement over 2G and helped to reduce
call costs dramatically. Another important advantage of GPRS is that it allows users to remain
connected to the Internet without incurring additional charge and supports multimedia
capabilities including graphics and video communications. GPRS deployments began in 2000,
followed by EDGE in 2003. EDGE enhances the capabilities of GPRS, allows faster Internet
browsing, and makes it possible to use streaming applications. Though this technology provided
faster data rates over 2G systems, it is called 2.5G because it did not offer the multi-megabit
data rates which are the characteristics of the 3G system.
Third generation
The 3G systems are often referred to as IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunications-
2000) systems since this was made a global standard by ITU. The 3G systems support much
higher data transmission rates and offer increased bandwidth, which makes them suitable for
high-speed data applications as well as for high quality traditional voice calls. The Introduction
to Mobile Computing and Wireless Networking 35 3G systems can be considered to be purely
data networks, since voice signals are converted to digital data, this results in speech being
dealt with in much the same way as any other form of data. The 3G systems use packet-
switching technology, and provide cheaper calls while giving better average call quality than
that of the 2G systems, but they do require a somewhat different infrastructure compared to
the 2G systems. The 3G networks made it possible for service providers to offer many
innovative applications and services such as email, instant messaging and video telephony,
multimedia gaming, live-video buffering, and location-based services among others. The first 3G
network was deployed in Japan in 2001 by DoCoMo.UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone
System) is one of the 3G mobile systems that was developed within the ITU’s IMT-2000
framework. UMTS was developed mainly for the GSM networks, so that these could be easily
upgraded to UMTS networks. In UMTS, coverage is provided by a combination of a variety of
cell sizes ranging from “in building” pico cellsto global cells provided by satellites. Even though
it was expected that the UMTS specification would become a single global standard for 3G
systems, it did not turn out that way. Now many different versions of 3G systems have come
into existence and each one evolved from some existing 2G system. The main 3G technologies
that are prevalent include UMTS and CDMA2000. European countries have adopted UMTS,
while the USA uses CDMA2000.
Fourth generation
A 4G system provides a faster data rate than that of 3G (at least 10 times faster) and makes
mobile broadband Internet access possible. The 4G system has made possible high speed
Internet access from smartphones and laptops with USB wireless modems. A few applications
that could not be supported in earlier generations of the cellular phone systems, have now
become possible in 4G including IP telephony, gaming services, high-definition mobile TV, video
conferencing and 3D television. The 4G technology is expected to help solve the last mile
problem that prevents the mobile users from running applications that are available on wired
networks. There are at present two competing 4G standards: Mobile WiMAX standard and the
Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard.In the following section, we provide a brief overview of the
working of a few cellular wireless technologies that are being popularly used at present.
Operation Subsystems:
In the context of telecommunications, operation subsystems refer to the different components
that work together to ensure the smooth functioning of a cellular network.
Radio Access Network (RAN): The RAN includes base stations and antennas responsible for
connecting mobile devices to the core network. It manages radio communication and
handovers between cells.
Core Network: Comprising various elements such as Mobile Switching Center (MSC), Home
Location Register (HLR), and Visitor Location Register (VLR), the core network handles call
routing, mobility management, and subscriber information.
Mobile Station (MS): The mobile station refers to the user's device, including the mobile phone
or any other communication device. It communicates with the RAN and the core network.
Operations and Maintenance Center (OMC): OMC is responsible for monitoring, controlling,
and managing the overall performance of the cellular network. It plays a crucial role in ensuring
network reliability and efficiency.

Authentication Center (AuC) and Equipment Identity Register (EIR): These components
contribute to network security by authenticating users and managing the identity of mobile
equipment, preventing fraud and unauthorized access.