The technology and business of mobile telecommunications : an introduction

Abstract

"Mobile communications and the internet are widely regarded as the most influential technologies that reshaped human behaviour and interactions over the last 30 years. Today, there are more mobile connections worldwide than the global human population. Mobile networks are functional from the teeming mega cities to the sparsely populated arid lands. From humble beginnings in the early 1980s, the industry has experienced phenomenal growth fuelled by technological advancement. Today the challenge of providing 'anywhere, anytime' communications and connectivity has mostly been achieved. Yet the industry is facing a new set of challenges, created largely by its own success. In this book, we will focus not just on the past successes of the mobile industry, but also on the current challenges it is facing and the likely shape it will take in future. Technologically the mobile industry from its inception, has endeavoured to provide faster, more reliable and cheaper connectivity to its customers. We will cover the basics of cellular network deployment and progress to the most advanced technologies used today, with a special emphasis on the technical challenges the industry faced and the ingenious solutions it has developed. We will discuss the technological journey, from the first wide spread mobile generation (2G) to the current 5th Generation (5G) and look at what likely shape the next wave of deployments, the 6G will take. From a business perspective, the mobile industry has evolved into a complex eco-system generating huge revenues and touching the lives of billions of people. We will analyze this eco-system, playing special attention to the business aspects of the mobile operator. Basically, this book is an attempt to introduce not just what happened and what is happening in the industry but to answer why, looking closely at the technical and business rationale" Provided by publisher.