Chapter 1 - Introduction to Cellular Systems

Abstract

The chapter provides an overview of cellular telephony systems. Cellular telephony systems are radio systems that involve distributed transmission. In these systems, the coverage area is divided into smaller areas known as cells. Each cell has one stationary transceiver known as a base station. A user of a cellular system communicates with the base station to place a call. The call can be data or voice, and the base station routes the call to either a terrestrial network to the termination point or to another user of the same cellular network. For voice calls, the base station either directly or indirectly routes the call to a public switched telephony network (PSTN). The communications link from the base station to the subscriber is referred to as the downlink or forward link, while the link from the subscriber to the base station is referred to as the uplink or reverse link. The chapter also provides a brief history of cellular telephony and gives a basic description of a cellular system and its underlying components along with a discussion on cellular concept, which makes wireless multiple access communications possible. A brief overview of the different types of multiaccess technologies available for wireless cellular systems is also given.