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Vasco Pereira, Tiago Sousa, Paulo Mendes, Edmundo Monteiro, "Evaluation of Mobile
Communications: From Voice Calls to Ubiquitous Multimedia Group Communications", in Proc. of
the 2nd International Working Conference on Performance Modelling and Evaluation of
Heterogeneous Networks, HET-NETs'04, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, U.K., July 2004
Abstract
Today, mobile communications play a central role in the voice/data network arena. With the deployment
of mass scale 3G just around the corner, new directions are already being researched. In this paper we
address the evolution of mobile communications, from its first generation, 1G, to the latest 3G and give a
glimpse of foreseeable future of 4G.
1. Introduction
From the early analog mobile generation (1G) to the last implemented third generation (3G) the
paradigm has changed. The new mobile generations do not pretend to improve the voice communication
experience but try to give the user access to a new global communication reality. The aim is to reach
communication ubiquity (every time, everywhere) and to provide users with a new set of services.
The growth of the number of mobile subscribers over the last years led to a saturation of voice-oriented
wireless telephony. From a number of 214 million subscribers in 1997 to 1.162 millions in 2002 [1], it is
predicted that by 2010 there will be 1700 million subscribers worldwide [2] (see Figure 1). It is now time to
explore new demands and to find new ways to extend the mobile concept. The first steps have already been
taken by the 2.5G, which gave users access to a data network (e.g. Internet access, MMS - Multimedia
Message Service). However, users and applications demanded more communication power. As a response
to this demand a new generation with new standards has been developed - 3G. In spite of the big initial
euphoria that evolved this technology, only one 3G network exists in commercial use today. This network
has been deployed in Japan in 2001 using international standard IMT-2000, with great success.
Description
Low
battery
consumption,
but
transmission is one-way, and its speed
pales next to 3G technologies
GSM
GPRS
EDGE
Enhanced
Data
GSM
Environment is a 3G digital
network
Data Up to 384kbps
CDMA
W-CDMA
(UMTS)
CDMA2000
1xRTT
CDMA2000
1xEV-DO
CDMA2000
1xEV-DV
Data Up to 2.4Mbps
TDMA
Pros/cons
Meanwhile, developers are focusing on the much-hyped third generation (3G) of wireless systems.
3G thinking had to evolve. As personal wireless handsets become more common than fixed telephones, it is
clear that personal wireless Internet access will follow and users will want broadband Internet access
wherever they go.
Today's 3G specifications call for 144 Kb/s while the user is on the move in an automobile or train, 384
Kb/s for pedestrians, and ups to 2 Mb/s for stationary users. That is a big step up from 2G bandwidth using
8 to 13 Kb/s per channel to transport speech signals.
The second key issue for 3G wireless is that users will want to roam worldwide and stay connected.
Today, GSM leads in global roaming. Because of the pervasiveness of GSM, users can get comprehensive
coverage in Europe, parts of Asia and some U.S. coverage. A key goal of 3G is to make this roaming
capacity universal.
A third issue for 3G systems is capacity. As wireless usage continues to expand, existing systems are
reaching limits. Cells can be made smaller, permitting frequency reuse, but only to a point. The next step is
new technology and new bandwidth.
International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) is the official International
Telecommunication Union name for 3G and is an initiative intended to provide wireless access to global
telecommunication infrastructure through both satellite and terrestrial systems, serving fixed and mobile
phone users via both public and private telephone networks. GSM proponents put forward the universal
mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), an evolution of GSM, as the road to IMT-2000. Alternate
schemes have come from the U.S., Japan and Korea. Each scheme typically involves multiple radio
transmission techniques in order to handle evolution from 2G. Agreeing on frequency bands for IMT-2000
has been more difficult and the consensus included five different radio standards and three widely different
frequency bands. They are now all part of IMT-2000. To roam anywhere in this "unified" 3G system, users
will likely need a quintuple-mode phone able to operate in an 800/900 MHz band, a 1.7 to 1.9 GHz band
and a 2.5 to 2.69 GHz band.
Third-generation wireless also requires new infrastructure. There are two mobility infrastructures in
wide use. GSM has the mobile access protocol, GSM-MAP. The North American infrastructure uses the
IS-41 mobility protocol. These protocol sets define the messages passed between home location registers
and visitor location registers when locating a subscriber and the messages needed to deal with hand-offs as
a subscriber moves from cell to cell. 3G proponents have agreed on an evolution path so that existing
operators, running on either a GSM-MAP or an IS-41 infrastructure, can interoperate. But the rest of the
landline infrastructure to support IMT-2000 will be in flux in the near future. The IMT-2000 family is
illustrated in figure 3.
Interface
for Internetworking
IMT-2000
Core Network
ITU-T
GSM
(MAP)
Initial UMTS
(R99 w/ FDD)
IMT-2000
Radio Access
ITU-R
ANSI-41
(IS-634)
IP-Network
Flexible assignment of
Core Network and Radio Access
IMT-DS
IMT-TC
IMT-MC
IMT-SC
IMT-FT
(Direct Spread)
(Time Code)
(Single Carrier)
(Freq. Time)
UTRA FDD
(W-CDMA)
3GPP
UTRA TDD
(TD-CDMA);
TD-SCDMA
3GPP
(Multi
Carrier)
UWC-136
(EDGE)
UWCC/3GPP
DECT
cdma2000
3GPP2
ETSI
As show in table 1, UMTS use the radio technology called W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division
Multiple Access). W-CDMA is characterized by the use of a wider band than CDMA. W-CDMA has
additional advantages of high transfer rate, and increased system capacity and communication quality by
statistical multiplexing. W-CDMA utilizes efficiently the radio spectrum to provide a maximum data rate of
2 Mbps.
With the advent of mobile Internet access, suddenly the circuit-based backhaul network from the base
station and back has to significantly change. 3G systems are IP-centric and will justify an all-IP
infrastructure.
There will be no flip to 3G, but rather an evolution and, because of the practical need to re-use the
existing infrastructure and to take advantage of new frequency bands as they become available, that
evolution will look a bit different depending on where you are. The very definition of 3G is now an
umbrella, not a single standard, however, the industry is moving in the right direction towards a worldwide,
converged, network. Meanwhile, ever-improving DSPs will allow multi-mode, multi-band telephones that
solve the problem of diverse radio interfaces and numerous frequency bands. When one handset provides
voice and data anywhere in the world, that will be 3G no matter what is running behind the scenes.
system over the different wireless technologies available, a method of choosing the wireless access from
the available ones. Also necessary is a QoS framework that enables fair and efficient medium sharing
among users with different QoS requirements, supporting the different priorities of the services to be
deployed. The core of this network should be based in Internet Protocol version 6 IPv6, the probable
convergence platform of future services (IPv4 does not provide a suitable number of Internet addresses).
The network should also offer sufficient reliability by implementing a fault-tolerant architecture and failure
recovering protocols.
4.1. Migrating to 4G
The fact that 4G mobile networks intend to integrate almost every wireless standard already in use,
enabling its simultaneous use and interconnection poses many questions not yet answered. The research
areas that present key challenges to migrate current systems to 4G are many but can be summarized in the
following: Mobile Station, System and Service. [7]
To be able to use 4G mobile networks a new type of mobile terminals must be conceived. The terminals
to be adopted must adapt seamless to multiple wireless networks, each with different protocols and
technologies. Auto reconfiguration will also be needed so that terminals can adapt to the different services
available. This adaptation may imply that it must download automatically configuration software from
networks in range. Moreover terminals must be able to choose from all the available wireless networks the
one to use with a specific service. To do this it must be aware of specifications of all the networks in terms
of bandwidth, QoS supported, costs and respect to user preferences.
Terminal mobility will be a key factor to the success of 4G networks. Terminals must be able to provide
wireless services anytime, everywhere. This implies that roaming between different networks must be
automatic and transparent to the user. There are two major issues in terminal mobility, location
management and handoff management [7]. Location management deals with tracking user mobility, and
handling information about original, current and (if possible) future cells. Moreover it must deal with
authentication issues and QoS assurances. Handoff management primary objective is to maintain the
communications while the terminal crosses wireless network boundaries. In addition, 4G networks, in
opposition to the other mobile generations, must deal with vertical and horizontal handoffs, i.e., a 4G
mobile client may move between different types of wireless networks (e.g. GSM and Wi-Fi) and between
cells of the same wireless network (e.g. moving between adjacent GSM cells). Furthermore, many of the
services available in this new mobile generation like videoconference have restrict time constraints and
QoS needs that must not be perceptible affected by handoffs. To avoid these problems new algorithms must
be researched and a prevision of user mobility will be necessary, so as to avoid broadcasting at the same
time to all adjacent antennas what would waste unnecessary resources. Another major problem relates to
security, since 4G pretends to join many different types of mobile technologies. As each standard has its
own security scheme, the key to 4G systems is to be highly flexible.
Services also pose many questions as 4G users may have different operators to different services and,
even if they have the same operator, they can access data using different network technologies. Actual
billing using flat rates, time or cost per bit fares, may not be suitable to the new range of services. At the
same time it is necessary that the bill is well understood by operator and client. A broker system would be
advisable to facilitate the interaction between the user and the different service providers.
Another challenge is to know, at each time, where the user is and how he can be contacted. This is very
important to mobility management. A user must be able to be reached wherever he is, no matter the kind of
terminal that is being used. This can be achieved in various ways one of the most popular being the use of a
mobile-agent infrastructure. In this framework, each user has a unique identifier served by personal mobile
agents that make the link from users to Internet.
5. Conclusion
In this paper we present the evolution of mobile communications through all its generations. From the
initial speech vocation to an IP-based data network, several steps were made. From the analog voice centric
first generation to the digital second generation, the goal was to enhance the voice experience of a user, by
improving the quality of the communication while using more efficiently the installed capacity. At the
same time the enhanced mobility provided by seamless handover and the additional data communications
capacity (although very small) advanced and opened the doors to future developments. Some of the
developments was brought by generation 2.5 namely by GPRS, which improved data communications by
supporting IP in the GSM infrastructure. With the third generation the goal changed from voice-centric to
data-centric. Moreover total mobility became an objective to pursuit. In this generation it is possible to
combine voice, multimedia applications and mobility in a never experienced manner.
However, the global mobility, while an important objective, was never really reached. At the same time
new applications demand more bandwidth and lower costs. The newcomer fourth-generation tries to
address this problem by integrating all different wireless technologies.
In spite of all the evolving technologies the final success of new mobile generations will be dictated by
the new services and contents made available to users. These new applications must meet user expectations,
and give added value over existing offers.
6. References
[1] Mobile cellular, subscribers per 100 people, International Telecommunication Union Statistics, 2002
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/cellular02.pdf
[2] Kim, Y., Jeong, B.J., Chung, J., Hwang, C., Ryu, J.S., Kim, K., Kim, Y.K., Beyond 3G: Vision, Requirements, and
Enabling Technologies, IEEE Communications Magazine, March 2003, pp. 120-124
[3] ITU-R PDNR WP8F, Vision, Framework and Overall Objectives of the Future Development of IMT-2000 and
Systems beyond IMT-2000, 2002.
[4] 2G 3G Cellular Wireless data transport terminology, Arc Electronics
www.arcelect.com/2G-3G_Cellular_Wireless.htm
[5] Schiller, J., Mobile Communications, slides
http://www.jochenschiller.de/
[6] Tachikawa, Keiji, A perspective on the Evolution of Mobile Communications, IEEE Communications Magazine,
October 2003, pp. 66-73
[7] Hui, Suk Yu, and Yeung, Kai Hau, Challenges in the Migration to 4G Mobile Systems, IEEE Communications
Magazine, December 2003, pp. 54-59