Introduction to

technology generations
 Cellular Network Generations
It is useful to think of cellular Network/telephony in
terms of generations:
 1G: Analog cellular telephony

 2G: Digital cellular telephony

 3G: High-speed digital cellular telephony (including video

telephony)
 4G: IP-based “anytime, anywhere” voice, data, and
multimedia telephony at faster data rates than 3G
 1G- First generation Analog Cellular
Systems
• First Wireless Cell phone Introduced
• AMPS- Advanced Mobile Phone System
• 1982
• U.S.
• Analog telecommunications standards
• Only Voice transmission
• Speech Channel utilize FM Modulation
• Control Channel utilize BPSK
• FDMA
1G- Drawbacks
• Poor Voice Quality
• Poor Battery Life
• Large Phone Size
• No Security
• Frequent Call drops
• Limited Capacity and Poor Handoff reliability
1G- Technologies other than AMPS
• TACS- Total Access Communication System
Italy, Spain, Austria and Ireland.
• NMT- Nordic Mobile Telephone
several countries- Scandinavian
• C-450 in Germany & Portugal
• Radiocom 2000 in France
• RTMS (Radio Telephone Mobile System) in
Italy
• NTT (Nippon telephone & telegraph) in Japan
 Evolution from 2G
2G IS-95 GSM- IS-136 & PDC

GPRS
IS-95B
2.5G
HSCSD EDGE

Cdma2000-1xRTT W-CDMA
3G Cdma2000-1xEV,DV,DO EDGE
TD-SCDMA
Cdma2000-3xRTT
3GPP2 3GPP
2G – Second Generation
• Digital System
• TDMA/FDD and CDMA/FDD
• Capable of accommodating data in addition to
Voice.
• Include Three TDMA standard and one
CDMA standard
2G- TDMA Standard
• GSM- Global System for Mobile Communication
Supports 8 Time slotted users for each 200kHz
radio channel.
• IS-136 – Interim Standard 136
Supports 3 Time slotted users for each 30kHz
radio channel.
• PDC- Pacific Digital Cellular
Japanese TDMA Standard similar to IS-136
2G- CDMA Standard
• IS-95 – Interim Standard 95 Code Division
Multiple Access. Also known as cdmaOne.
Supports 64 users that are orthogonally coded
and simultaneously transmitted on each
1.25MHz Channel.
2.5G
• Three upgrade paths for GSM carriers and two
of them also supports IS-136.
 HSCSD- High Speed Circuit switched Data
 GPRS- general Packet Radio Service
 EDGE- Enhanced Data Rates for GSM
Evolution
HSCSD- High Speed Circuit switched Data

• Instead of limiting each user to only one

specific time slot in the GSM TDMA standard
it allows a single mobile user to use consecutive
time slots in order to obtain higher speed data
access on the GSM network.
GPRS FOR 2.5G GSM and IS-136
• GPRS is a Packet based data network.
• Well suited for non real time internet usage,
including retrieval of email, faxes and
asymmetric web browsing.
• Unlike HSCSD which dedicates circuit
switched channels to specific users, GPRS
supports multiuser network sharing of
individual radio channels and time slots. Thus
GPRS can support many users than HSCSD,
but in bursty manner.
GPRS Continued…
• Implementation of GPRS requires the GSM
operation to install new routers and internet
Gateways at the base station, along with new
software that redefines the base station air
interface standard for GPRS channels and time
slots. No new base station RF hardware is
required.
EDGE for 2.5G GSM and IS-136
• EDGE is a more advanced upgrade to the
GSM standard and requires the addition of new
hardware and software at existing base stations.
• EDGE introduces a new digital modulation
format 8-PSK (Octal Phase Shift Keying) which
is used in addition to GSM’s standard GMSK
modulation.
• EDGE allows nine different air interface
formats known as multiple modulation and
coding schemes (MCS)
IS- 95B for 2.5G CDMA
• The 2.5G CDMA solution IS-95B supports
Medium Data Rate (MDR) service by allowing a
dedicated user to command up to eight different
user Walsh code simultaneously and in parallel for
an instantaneous throughput of 115.2 kbps per
user.
• IS-95 also specifies hard Handoff procedures that
allow subscriber units to search different radio
channels in the network with instruction from the
switch, so that subscriber units can rapidly tune to
different base stations to maintain link quality.