The very first mobile phone was developed by Motorola in 1973 and it is estimated that today we have about 5 billion mobile phone users across the world (that is more than half of Earth's population and that too in a matter of just over 4 decades). 24X7 connectivity and reliability of the wireless connection is the main reason for such proliferation. With the growing number of mobile phone users along with increase in demand for different mobile services has put an immense pressure on wireless communication technologies or cellular or mobile technologies to evolve very fast. In a matter of just 25 years cellular technology has seen a dramatic transformation. The first cellular standard was deployed around 1983 in the USA was analog cellular called 1G which was later transformed into digital cellular 2G and today we are ready to implement the 5th generation of cellular standard called 5G.

What are these cellular standards, how they are different from each other and what are the new mobile service avenues these latest mobile standard promise are discussed in this article.

First Generation: First Generation of wireless telecommunication technology was called Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) was introduced in USA in 1983 and is referred to as 1G. The radio signals are analog in nature and it only support voice services. Large amount of bandwidth is required as it requires large spectrum gap between users and support one user per channel thus has limited capacity. Also it is unencrypted and insecure. It comprises of following mobile technologies- Mobile Telephone Systems (MTS), Advance Mobile Telephone Systems (AMTS), Push To Talk (PTT), and Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS).

Second Generation:Second Generation (2G) cellular telecom network was launched is 1991 in Finland. It is digital network that support more number of users per channel as it employs TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and hence has increased capacity. 2G supports services such as text messages, picture messages and MMS (multi media messages) other than voice. It provides safe and secure communication channel with digital encryption. 2G comprises of the following Mobile Technologies- General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), and Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). It offers a speed upto 150kbps.

Third Generation: 3G is voice + data. It introduces high speed internet access on mobile devices (note that 2G internet came after 3G set-up). CDMA forms the foundation of 3G. In addition to voice and data, 3G promises better connectivity and voice during mobility. Transmission Speed ranges from 125kbps to 2Mbps. Along with voice communication it support data services, access to television/video and new services like global roaming. It operates at the range of 2100MHz and has a bandwidth of 15-20MHz used for high speed internet service, video calls, global roaming, 3D & multiplayer gaming. 3G comprises of Wideband CDMA, WLAN, Bluetooth, Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS), High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). 3G is costly when compared to 2G, it is more power hungry due to high bandwidth transmission

Fourth Generation:4G is wireless broadband where data is used for everything. There are no separate voice channels and voice calls are done over internet (or data services). Since there is no separate voice channel, wider bandwidth is available for data and hence it is ideal for bandwidth intensive applications like streaming media. It is capable of providing speed upto 1Gbps. 4G comprised of following mobile technologies- Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX). It is not been implemented throughout the world yet.

Fifth Generation:5G or Fifth Generation wireless systems is in early stage of work and likely to be introduced around 2020. It is believed that 5G will be able to handle several thousand times more calls and data traffic when compared with 3G and 4G networks and will offer few hundred times more speed compared to 4G. In addition to faster speed, 5G will be able to meet the requirements for applications like Internet of Things, lifeline communication during natural disasters etc.

By Sagar Juneja - Research Associate & Shivangi Gupta - Final Year ECE Student Chitkara University H.P.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones