First Generation

Justin Champion
C208 Ext:3273
First Generation
 What we will look at
 1st Generation technology
 Analogue signals
 Frequency Division
 Handover
 Infrastructure
First Generation
 Early Wireless
communications
 Signal fires
 Morse Code
 Radio

Radio Transmitter 1928 Dorchester

First Generation
 1st Generation devices
 Introduced in the UK by Vodafone
 January 1985
 UK Technology (and Italy)
 Total Access Cellular System (TACS)
 This was based on the American design of AMPS
 Used the 900MHz frequency range
 Europe
 Germany adopted C-net
 France adopted Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT)
First Generation
 Operates
 Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
 Covered in next slide

 Operates in the 900MHz frequency range

 Three parts to the communications
 Voice channels
 Paging Channels
 Control Channels
PCS – 1G to 2G technology
 FDMA
 Breaks up the available frequency into 30 KHz channels
 Allocates a single channel to each phone call

 The channel is agreed with the Base station before

transmission takes place on agreed and reserved channel
 The device can then transmit on this channel
 No other device can share this channel even if the person is not
talking at the time!
 A different channel is required to receive
 The voice/sound is transmitted as analogue data, which means
that a large than required channel has to be allocated.
PCS – 1G to 2G technology
 FDMA
Frequency
PCS – 1G to 2G technology
 FDMA
 You use this technology all of the time!
 Consider your radio in the house
 As you want different information you change the frequency
which you are receiving
PCS – 1G to 2G technology
 Voice calls
 Are transferred using Frequency modulation
 The rate at which the carrier wave undulates is changed
 Encoding information
 More resistant to interference than AM radio

(www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0030280.html, 2004)
PCS – 1G to 2G technology
 1G infrastructure

PSTN

Mobile Switching Centre

First Generation
 Infrastructure
 Base Station
 Carries out the actual radio communications with the
device
 Sends out paging and control signals
 MSC
 Takes responsibility
 Controls all calls attached to this device
 Maintains billing information
 Switches calls (Handover)
First Generation
 Cellular Architecture
 Allows the area to be broken into smaller cells
 The mobile device then connects to the closest
cell
Cell
Cell Cell
Cell Cell Cell
Cell Cell Cell Cell
Cell Cell Cell
Cell Cell
Cell
First Generation
 Cellular Architecture continued
 Cellular architecture requires the available frequency to be
distributed between the cells
 If 2 cells next to each other used the same frequency each
would interfere with each other

Cell
Cell Cell Cell Frequency 900
Cell
First Generation
 Cellular Architecture continued
 There must be a distance between adjoining cells
 This distance allows communications to take place

Cell Frequency 900

Cell Frequency 920

Cell
Cell Cell Cell Frequency 940
Cell

Cell Frequency 960

First Generation
 Cellular Architecture continued
 This is referred to as the “Minimum Frequency Reuse Factor”
 This requires proper planning and can be an issue for all radio
based wireless communications
 Planning the radio cell and how far a signal may go

Cell
Cell Cell
Cell
First Generation
 Radio Planning
 Logically we picture a cell as being a
Octagon
 In reality the shape of a transmission will
change depending on the environment
 In this diagram of a cell you can see this
 The building are the rectangles in dark green
 The darker the shade of green the stronger
the signal

Cell Cell
Cell Cell
Cell
First Generation
 Radio Planning
 Planning needs careful thought
 You must cover the entire area with the minimum of base
stations
 Base stations cost the company money

 They also make the potential for radio problems greater

 Simulations can be used but accurate models of the area is

required
 Best solution is to measure the signals at various points
 From this a decision can be made
Cell
Cell Cell
Cell
First Generation
 Cellular infrastructure why ??
 Cells with different frequencies allow devices to
move between these cells
 The device just informing what frequency they are
communicating at
 Cellular communications can only travel a certain
distance
 Discussed in the wireless LAN’s lecture
 Cell sizes are flexible
 Examples in the TUK TACS system were up to 50 Miles!
First Generation
 Cellular infrastructure
 Once you get to the ‘edge’ of a cell you will need
a handover
 Handover allows the user to move between cells
 After a certain distance the amount of data which is sent in
error becomes greater than the data sent correctly at this
point you need to connect to a new cell which is closer.
 TACS carries this out by monitoring the amplitude of the
voice signal
First Generation
 Cellular infrastructure
 Communicating with BS1
 Moving towards BS2

S1
sionB
s mis
Tra n
nsm Tra
issi
on
B S2

BS1
BS2
First Generation
 Cellular infrastructure
 Power of signal now weakening

BS1
BS2
First Generation
 Cellular infrastructure
 Paging signal stronger so hand over to new MSC

BS1
BS2
First Generation
 Handover
 Once a handover is decided upon by the BS
 The MSC is informed
 All BS in the area of the current location are informed to
start paging the device
 The BS with the strongest signal is then handed over to
 The call can continue
 In reality a lot of calls were dropped whilst waiting for a
handover to take place
 Ending a call
 A 8Khz tone is sent for 1.8 seconds
 The phone then returns to an idle state
First Generation
 TACS
 Problems
 Roaming was not applicable outside of the UK
 All of Europe was using different standards
 Different frequencies
 Different frequency spacing
 Different encoding technologies
 Security
 Calls were easily ‘listened’ upon
 Limited capacity of the available spectrum
 Analogue signal meant a larger than required amount of the
frequency had to be allocated to each call
 Expansion of the network was difficult
 This was unacceptable
 GSM was introduced
 Next weeks lecture!
First Generation
 Summary
 1G systems
 TACS
 Frequency Use
 Infrastructure
 Handover
 Problems