Chapter One
Introduction
Jaana Laiho, Achim Wacker, Tomáš Novosad, Peter Muszynski,
Petri Jolma and Roman Pichna
1.1 A Brief Look at Cellular History
The history of mobile communications started with the work of the first pioneers in the
area. The experiments of Hertz in the late 18th century inspired Marconi to search
markets for the new commodity (to be). The communication needs in the First and
Second World Wars were also supporting and accelerating the start of cellular radio,
especially in terms of utilisation of ever higher frequencies. The first commercial systems
were simplex, and the operator was required to place the call. In the case of mobile-originated
calls the customer had to search for an idle channel manually. Bell
Laboratories first introduced the cellular concept as known today. In December 1971
they demonstrated how the cellular system could be designed.
The first cellular system in the world became operational in Tokyo, Japan, in 1979.
The network was operated by NTT, known also as a strong driver for cellular systems
based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDM ... read full excerpt from Radio Network Planning and Optimisation for UMTS ebook