ABSTRACT

This article presents an overview of migrations among various generations with emphasis on trends in the areas of wireless networking. Migrations from one type of network to another are being experienced due to advances in wireless communication since the days of ingenious inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and Guglielmo Marconi. Today’s wireless technology serves the plethora of person to person communication demands rather than point to point communication. These all advances are due to the technological growth, standards and services required. The nomenclature of the generations generally refers to a change in the nature of the service, non backwards compatible transmission technology and new frequency bands. The first move was from 1981 analogue (1G) to digital(2G) transmission in 1992. This was followed in 2002 by the 3G multi media support, spread spectrum transmission and at least 200kbit/s ,soon followed by 4G which refers to all IP packet-switched networks, mobile ultra-broadband (gigabit speed) access and multi carrier transmission. Pre-4G technology such as mobile WiMAX and first release 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE) have been available in market since 2006 and 2009 respectively.