Mobile Networks Mobile telephony networks have been a phenomenal success story since their introduction in the mid- to late 1980s. This success is being built upon, and a number of operators (old and new) around the world are looking to provide the latest generation of mobile network technology labelled 3G for third generation. | Next Generation Network Services Neill Wilkinson Copyright 2002 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBNs 0-471-48667-1 Hardback 0-470-84603-8 Electronic 4 Mobile Networks INTRODUCTION Mobile telephony networks have been a phenomenal success story since their introduction in the mid- to late 1980s. This success is being built upon and a number of operators old and new around the world are looking to provide the latest generation of mobile network technology labelled 3G for third generation. The 3G label is based on the generally accepted premise that the first-generation cellular networks are the analogue-based ones first made popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s AMPS in the US TACS in the UK NMT450 900 in Scandinavian countries and an NTT standard in Japan more on these later and that the second generation the digital cellular networks that arrived in the early 1990s global system for mobile communications GSM in Europe personal digital cellular in Japan D-AMPS or IS-54 IS-136 and IS-95 in the US again more on these later in the chapter . The 3G mobile networks are subject to a set of standards developed by the International Telecommunications Union ITU formally CCITT Europe Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI and the European RACE project. This work was started as long ago as 1986. The ITU concept is based around handset mobility and the early programme was dubbed future public land mobile telephone system FPLMTS . The concepts were expanded to include the idea that a user should be able to access any telecommunications service from any suitable terminal connected at any point on any network. This became known as personal mobility. The ITU went on to define the concept as Universal Personal Telecommunications UPT . The ITU was dragging its feet on what the standard should finally look like and the choice of technology for FPLMTS. FPLMTS was eventually renamed international mobile commu- 42 MOBILE NETWORKS Figure Roadmap to UMTS nications for use in the year
