There are two major trends occuring at once
- Increasing number of cellular connectoins
- Increasing exppectation for high-speed connectivity + ubiquity
Thus, we must thnk about the performance of various cellular technologies (e.g. GSM CDMA, HSPA, LTE)
Brief History of the Gs
Trying to cover all the celular standards, etc. would be impossible, so let’s try to develop intuition for the general landscape and operating paramters
Each wireless generation’s standards are expressed in terms of peak spectral efficiency which is translated to impressive numbers like peak data rates.
Generation
- 1G: Analog systems
- Peak data rate: no data
- 2G: first digital systems as overlays or parallel to analog systems
- Peak data rate: Kbit/s
- Latency: 300-1000ms
- 3G: Dedicated digital networks deployed in parallel to analog systems
- Peak data rate: Mbit/s
- Latency: 100-500ms
- 4G: Digital and packet-only networks
- Peak data rate: Gbit/s
- Latency: <100ms
But still, real performance will vary by {provider, configuration, number of active useres, etc.} Which is why we should assume
- Closer to the lower bound for data througput
- Closer to higher bound for packet latency
First Data Services with 2G
1979: first commercial 1G neetwork (Japan)
- No data capability
- Analog system
1991: First 2G network (Finland)
- Based on GSM Standard
- Enabledd first circuit switched mobile data services
Mid 1990s: 2.5G
- Enabled by general packet radio service being introduced to the GSM standard
- Very slow wireless internet access: 172kbit/s
3GPP and 3GPP2 Partnerships
Evolution of 3G Technologies
In 3G context, 2 competing dominant standards
- UMTS (by 3GPP)
- CMDA (by 3GPP2)
Why not jump to 4G?
- Expensive
- Ec.
IMT-Advanced 4G Requirements
Long Term Evolution (LTE)
HSPA+ leading worldwide 4G Adoption
Building for hte muligeneratonal future
Some reasonable predictinos
- Wireless standards are evolving quickly, but older generations will continue to operate for at least another decade
- Cannot target a single type or generation of network
- Performance of any network is variable
- Should adapt to continuously changing conditions within the network