1. List and describe the generation of wireless technologies.

Generation of wireless technologies and their differences

Ever since mobile telecommunications standards were first laid down in the 198o’s (the First

Generation or 1G), there has been a continuous effort to increase the data rates available to the

end users. 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G basically refer to these standards that were successively laid and

met by the telecommunication sector (both the industry and the academia). The current thrust is

towards reaching the 5th Generation of mobile communications. Behind each of these

generations, there have been one or more breakthrough technologies that helped achieve the

quantum inter-generation leaps in the data rates. I will elaborate upon those below:

 First Generation (1G):

Analog Cellular Network. The main technological development that distinguished the First

Generation mobile phones from the previous generation was the use of multiple cell sites, and

the ability to transfer calls from one site to the next as the user travelled between cells during a

conversation. The first commercially automated cellular network (the 1G generations) was

launched in Japan by NTT in 1979.

Completely Analog Modulation Scheme

- Analog FM modulation

Multiple Access Scheme

-FDMA with Frequency Division Duplexing

Examples: AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Services)

 Second Generation (2G):

Digital Network in the 1990s, the 'second generation' (2G) mobile phone systems emerged,

primarily using the GSM standard. These 2G phone systems differed from the previous

generation in their use of digital transmission instead of analog transmission, and also by the

introduction of advanced and fast phone-to-network signaling. The rise in mobile phone usage as

a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw the advent of prepaid mobile phone. Digital

Communication introduced still designed only for phone calls (using phones to access internet

was still unthinkable) ~ 10 kbps.

Multiple Access Scheme

-FDMA, TDMA (for GSM) and CDMA

Examples: GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) and CDMA (Code Division

Multiple Access)

 2.5G:

Realization dawned that people wanted phones for both voice and data and thus this intermediate

standard was introduced. Recall how you used to access internet using GPRS (General Packet

Radio Service). Up until 2G, only circuit switched networks were in use which were unsuitable

for internet. With the advent of GPRS, packet switching was introduced which was more suited

for internet.

Examples: GPRS ~ 50kbps

EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution) ~ 200 kbps

  Third Generation (3G):

High speed IP data networks. This time the target was to be able to provide sufficient data rate

for both voice and mobile internet ~ 384 kbps. As the use of 2G phones became more

widespread and people began to use mobile phones in their daily lives, it became clear that

demand for data services (such as access to the internet) was growing. Furthermore, if the

experience from fixed broadband services was anything to go by, there would also be a demand

for ever greater data speeds. The 2G technology was nowhere near up to the job, so the industry

began to work on the next generation of technology known as 3G. The main technological

difference that distinguishes 3G technology from 2G technology is the use of packet switching

rather than circuit switching for data transmission.

Examples: WCDMA (Wideband CDMA), CDMA 2000 and UMTS (Universal Mobile

Telecomm Standard)

 3.5G:

This is what most of urban India currently uses. HSDPA/HSUPA (High Speed Downlink/Uplink

Packet Access) are the standards used and they offer data rates of 5-30 Mbps.

 Fourth Generation (4G):

Growth of mobile broadbands. In essence, mobile broadband. They now want to offer you

broadband-like data rates on mobile devices ~ 100-200 Mbps.

The key technologies that have made this possible are MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output)

and OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing). For those who are from engineering

background, MIMO leverages spatial multiplexing to provide diversity gain while OFDM is

more adept at managing channel distortion and ISI.

The two important 4G standards are WiMAX (has now fizzled out) and LTE (has seen

widespread deployment). LTE has only recently been introduced in India. The expectation for

the 4G technology is basically the high quality audio/video streaming over end to end Internet

Protocol. The first two commercially available technologies billed as 4G were the WiMAX

standard and the LTE standard, first offered in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera. One of the main

ways in which 4G differed technologically from 3G was in its elimination of circuit switching,

instead employing an all-IP network. Thus, 4G ushered in a treatment of voice calls just like any

other type of streaming audio media, utilizing packet switching over internet, LAN or WAN

networks via VoIP. 4G LTE data transfer speed can reach peak download 100 Mbit/s, peak

upload 50 Mbit/s, WiMAX offers peak data rates of 128 Mbit/s downlink and 56 Mbit/s uplink.

2. Differentiate web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0

Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0

Read-only Read-write Read-write-execute

Static Web Dynamic Web Semantic Web

Company-oriented Community-oriented Individually-oriented

Low portability Medium portability High portability

Professionally developed User developed applications OpenUser developed smart

stand-alone applications application

Syntax aware basic browsing Syntax aware advanced Content aware and context

and search capabilities browsing and search aware next generation

capabilities browsing and search

capabilities
HTML XML RDF

Point-to-point/hub & spoke Service-oriented architecture Web oriented architect and

architecture internet of things

Sliced data Light interlinked data Worldwide database

1990-2000 2000-2010 2010-2020

3. What is Moore's Law and how does this affects the evolution of technology

Moore's Law is the observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of

transistors on a chip doubles every year while the costs are halved. In 1965, Gordon Moore

noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every

year since their invention. Moore's law predicts that this trend will continue into the foreseeable

future. Although the recent pace has slowed for Moore's Law, the doubling of installed

transistors on silicon chips occurs closer to every 18 months instead of annually. The 18-month

mark is now used as the current definition of Moore's law. Moore’s Law became widely

accepted and the industry began to establish road maps and set goals based on Moore’s

projection. As the production of integrated circuits became more complex and involved the

interplay of various specialized companies, a plan was needed to help all parties set individual

targets and advance at an equal pace.

Since 1998, the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors), a yearly report

produced by a group of semiconductor industry experts, provides the basis for such a plan. The

ITRS documents assess the directions of research in all areas relevant to semiconductors and
provide timelines for up to 15 years into the future. Ultimately, the law has been serving as a

vision for an entire industry and has become something like a perpetual self-fulfilling prophecy.