#1 TELECOMMUNICATION : HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF TELECOM GENERATIONS (1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G)

Telecom generation means  1G , 2G , 3G , 4G , 5G .

The mobile radio telephone were introduced for military communications in the early 20th century.
Car based telephone was first tested in Saint Louis in 1946.

This system used a single large transmitter on top of a high rise building. a single channel was used
for sending and receiving similar to a half duplex system. To talk, the user pushed a button that enabled transmission and disabled reception. Due to this, these became known as "push-to-talk" system in the 1950s.

To  allow users to talk and listen at the same time, IMTS(improved mobile telephone system) was introduced in 1960. It uses two channels, one for sending and one for receiving bringing telecommunication to full duplex mode.

In 1970s private companies have started developing their own system to evolve the existing system further. Those private systems are the analog mobile phone system (AMPS), used in America, Total access communication system and Nordic  mobile telephone used in parts of Europe  and Japanese total access communication system, used in Japan and Hong Kong.

An independently developed system is called as 1st generation communication. It was introduced in 1982 by bell labs and popularly known as an advanced mobile phone system (AMPS).

The key idea here was to divide geographical areas into cells and cell was served by a base station so that frequency reuse can be implemented. As a result, AMPS could support 5 to 10 times more users than IMTS. Major concern for a 1st generation was weak security on the air interface, full analog mode of communication, and no roaming.

Now, to implement roaming. Individual organizations started working under one umbrella, European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and developed 2nd generation system.
Second generation cellular telecom networks were commercially launched in 1991 in Finland

based on the GSM standards. It could deliver data at the rate of up to 9.6 kbps. The  primary benefits of 2G networks over their predecessors were. Phone conversations were now digitally encrypted. It was significantly more efficient on the spectrum and allowed for greater mobile phone penetration level.

2G introduced data services for mobile, Starting with SMS text message.Further to achieve data rates GSM carriers started developing a service called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS).This system overlaid a packet switching network on the existing circuit switched GSM network. GPRS could transmit data at up to 160 kbps.

The phase after GPRS is called Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). It introduced 8 PSK modulation and could deliver data at up to 500 kbps using the same GPRS infrastructure.

During this time the internet was becoming popular and data, service was becoming more prevalent.

Post 2.5G, Multimedia services and streaming growing and phone now started supporting web browsing. Development of 3G, 3GPP UMTS the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System succeeded EDGE in 1999. This system uses wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) to carry the radio transmission, and often the system is referred to by the name WCDMA.

3 organizations started developing standards to meet the requirements proposed by ITU-R.

3GPP, 3GPP2,IEEE evolution of  3GPP started from GSM to Long Term Evolution Advanced. Evolution of 3GPP2 started from IS95 to CDMA.

Evolution of  IEEE started from 802.16 Fixed WiMAX to 802.16M, Since 3GPP was dominated and widely accepted, we will only incorporate and widely accepted, we will only incorporate roadmap evolved by 3GPP.

 Now coming back to the third generation. The goal of UMTS or 3G wireless system was to provide a minimum data rate of 2 Mbit per second for stationary or walking users, and 384 kbit per second

in a moving vehicle. 3GPP designated it as release 99.

The upgrades and additional facilities were introduced at successive releases of the 3GPP standard.

Next release of the 3GPP standard provided for the efficient use of IP, this was a key enabler for 3G HSDPA.

The next release included the core of HSDPA. It provided reduced delays for downlink packed and provided a data rate of 14 Mbps.

Next release included the core of HSUPA with a reduction in uplink delay it enhanced uplink raw data rate of 5.74 Mbps. This release also included MBMS for broadcasting services.

The next release of the 3GPP standard included downlink MIMO operation as well as support for higher order modulation of up to 64 QAM. Either MIMO or 64 QAM could be used at a time. Evolved HSPA provides data rates up to 28 Mbit per second in the downlink and 11 Mbit per second in the uplink.This brings us to the most awaited part. Long term evolution (LTE).

An initial goal of telecommunication was mobility and global connectivity, but as the technology evolved the services were not restricted to voice and SMS only. For this expansion and efficient execution in LTE, whole new architecture was adopted for both non-radio part (SAE System Architecture Evolution) and radio part using pure IP Architecture (Packet switching). To fulfill the requirement proposed by ITU-R, Study group formed and LTE standardization began in 2004. A Large number of telecom companies collaborated to achieve their common vision. In June 2005 next release, that is finally crystallized after a series of refining some of  the significant features of release  were

•  Reduced delays, for both connection establishment and transmission latency. 
• Increase user data throughout.
• Increased cell edge bit rate for uniformity of service provision.
• Reduced cost per bit, implying improved spectral efficiency.
• Simplified network architecture.
• Seamless mobility, including between different radio access technologies.
• Reasonable power consumption for the mobile terminal.

This requirement was fulfilled by advancement in the underlying mobile radio technology.the three fundamental technologies that have shaped the LTE radio interface design were: Multicarrier technology, and the application of packet switching to the radio interface. As a result of intense activity by a larger number of organizations, the specifications for the release  was completed by December 2007. The first commercial deployment took place by the end of 2009 in northern Europe.

In the Subsequent releases, multiple services such as multi-cell HSDPA, HETNET,Coordinate Multipoint, Carrier Aggregation, Massive MIMO and much more  were targeted for a rich customer experience. 

Now it's time to move from services to Multiple service approach, in another word from LTE-Advanced to the next Generation communication system which is 5th Generation.

Features have been planned to be added in the 5th Generation or next generation systems are -Pervasive networks:Where a user can concurrently be connected to several wireless access  technologies and seamlessly move between them.

Group cooperative relay: This is a technique that is being considered to make the high data rate available over a wider area of the cell.  

cognitive radio technology: it would enable the user equipment / handset to look at the radio landscape in which it is located and choose the optimum radio access network, modulation scheme and parameters to configure itself to gain the best connection and optimum performance.

Smart Antenna: Another major element of any 5G cellular system will be that of smart antennas.

using these it will be possible to alter the beam direction to enable more direct communications and limit interference and increase overall cell capacity.

So here I have covered a history of wireless communication starting from a single channel based Push to Talk  system to multiple services based purely advanced digital communication system....

In the future, I am going to post the difference between all generations so stay here.
Like 1G vs 2G vs 3G vs 4G vs 5G

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