| Purpose |
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GSM is a digital wireless
communication protocol for mobile phones and was developed in the
early 1980's to eliminate certain problems with the existing cellular
networks: |
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- Analog networks could not handle the growing capacity
of cellular networks, especially in an economical way
- The existing digital networks were not compatible with
each other
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| It was hoped that by having
one digital standard, the problems of analog systems would
be suppressed and users could roam from network to network
without changing their equipment. |
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| In addition to providing a solution for the above two
problems, GSM provided many other useful features such as security, authentication
and the ability to switch phones without the need to reconfigure the phone
with the existence of the SIM card. |
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| In 1982 the European Commission reserved the 900 MHz
spectrum in all member countries for GSM, thus setting the stage for interoperability
across Europe [1]. From 1982 to 1990 the specifications for GSM were being
deciding upon and in 1990 the final specifications were chosen. After
2 years, the first GSM network was operable in 1992 in Finland, and since
then GSM has been a huge success [1]. |
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| Since the original GSM specifications in 1990, the GSM
standard has been upgraded twice. In 1991 a new European GSM standard
was developed to operate at 1800 MHz (usually called DCS1800). The new
standard provided more bandwidth and less power requirements than the
previous standard. Furthermore, in 1995 a North American GSM standard
at 1900 MHz was established. |
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| Web Site Navigation |
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| To learn more about the entire process associated with
GSM, please see the System section. This section provides an overview
of the GSM System. To learn more about the technical details of the system,
either read more about the technical specifications below, or go to the
particular section to learn more about Coding, Modulation or the Multiple
Access Scheme. Though the information provided on this web-site is for
the GSM-900 standard, the 1800 and 1900 standards are very similar to
GSM-900. There is also a set of links below where more information on
GSM is available. |
