Mobile and Personal Communication : Past, Present and Future

PAST
From the introduction of public mobile radio in the United States in 1946 until the first analog cellular system went into operation in Chicago in 1983,mobile radio systems were based on the trunking principle. In other words,the available frequency spectrum (in the 150 or 450 MHz band) was divided into a suitable number of frequency channels. A centralized, high power antenna was used to transmit signals to mobile receivers. Large mobile receivers were installed in automobiles (in the trunks), and the telephone sets also were rather large. A call originating from or terminating on a mobile terminal had to compete for one of the limited number of channels. The quality of service in terms of call blocking probabilities was very high—in the order of 20-25%. However, the users were willing to trade off the convenience of mobility against the poor quality of service in terms of call blocking and received signal quality. These systems were also severely limited in terms of capacity and coverage.

To alleviate the high blocking problem in the early systems, efforts were made to allow call originations from the mobile telephones to wait for a free channel. In the so-called automated mobile telephone system (AMTS), the mobile telephone user would key in the called number and press the send button. The receiver system would then start scanning for an idle channel by cycling through all the channels in the system. In some systems, the number of scan cycles was restricted, so that if an idle channel was not found within the allowed number of scans, the call would be blocked. However, incoming calls to mobile terminals (mostly originating from fixed terminals in public switched telephone networks) had no mechanism for awaiting a free channel and were blocked on all-channels-busy condition. Though the improvement in the quality of service in these systems was only marginal, they did provide some interesting performance modeling problems

PRESENT
Since the initial commercial introduction of advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) service in 1983, mobile communications has seen an explosive growth worldwide. Besides the frequency reuse capabilities provided by the cellular operation, advances in technologies for wireless access, digital signal processing, integrated circuits, and increased battery life have contributed to exponential growth in mobile and personal communication services. Systems are evolving to address a range of applications and markets, which include digital cellular, cordless telephony, satellite mobile, and paging and specialized mobile radio systems. Data capabilities of these systems are also coming into focus with the increasing user requirements for mobile data communications, driven by the need for e-mail and Internet access. Whereas the analog cellular mobile systems fall in the category of first-generation mobile systems, the digital cellular, low power wireless, and personal communication systems are now perceived as second-generation mobile/PCS systems.

The first digital cellular system specification was released in 1990 by the European Telecommunications (ETSI) for the global system for mobile communication (GSM) system. The GSM, DCS 1800 (1800 MHz version of GSM), and DECT (digital enhanced cordless telecommunications) systems developed by ETSI form the basis for mobile and personal communication services not only in Europe but in many other parts of the world including North America. The number of GSM subscribers worldwide exceeds 100 million and is growing rapidly.

FUTURE
To complement the cellular and personal communication networks, whose radio coverage will be confined to populated areas of the world (less than 15% of the earth's surface), a number of global mobile satellite systems are in advanced stages of planning and implementation. These systems are generally referred as global mobile personal communications by satellites (GMPCS).GMPCS systems like Iridium, Globalstar, and ICO use constellations of low earth orbit (LEO) or medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites and operate as overlay networks for existing cellular and PCS networks. Using dual-mode terminals, they will extend the coverage of cellular and PCS networks to any and all locations on the earth's surface. On the other hand, a LEO satellite system like Teledesic aims to provide high capacity satellite links to enable delivery of high bitrate and multimedia services to every location on the earth.
International Mobile Telecommunications -2000 (IMT-2000) is the standard being developed by the ITU to set the stage for the third generation of mobile communication systems. The IMT-2000 standard not only will consolidate under a single standard different wireless environments (cellular mobile, cordless telephony, satellite mobile services), but will also ensure global mobility in terms of global seamless roaming and delivery of services. ETSI is also developing a third-generation mobile communication system called Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), which will belong to the family of IMT-2000 systems.