Introduction of Cellular (1G)
The Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) was the first generation of cellular networks that was built to support mobile phone communication. The AMPS network was first deployed in the United States in 1983, and it was the first standardized mobile phone system in the world.
AMPS networks were built using a cellular architecture, which divided a geographic area into smaller cells. Each cell was serviced by a base station, which was responsible for communicating with mobile phones within that cell. The base stations were connected to a Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO), which was responsible for managing the connections between the base stations and the telephone network.
AMPS used analog technology to transmit voice, which meant that the signal was a continuous wave that could be easily intercepted and listened to. To prevent this, the network used a system of “frequency reuse” where the same frequency channels were used in non-adjacent cells.
Each cell would use a specific set of frequency channels, and the cells would be spaced far enough apart that the signals wouldn’t interfere with each other. This allowed the network to support a large number of users in a relatively small amount of spectrum.
1G networks supported speeds of around 2.4 Kbps, although it was used for voice networks, not data.
