The GSM family (GSM, GPRS, EDGE) has become one of the most successful technical
innovations in history. As of June 2008, more than 2.9 billion subscribers were using GSM,
corresponding to a market share of more than 81%, and its story continues, even now, despite
the introduction and development of next-generation systems such as IMT-2000 or UMTS
(3G) and even systems beyond 3G, dubbed IMT-Advanced.
At the same time, wireless local area networks have substantially expanded the wireless
market, sometimes drawing market share from GPRS and 3G (e.g. in public WiFi hotspots),
sometimes coexisting (e.g. in UMTS home routers used as a replacement for fixed wire
connections). However, these are used typically for low mobility applications. Mobile
communication with all of its features and stability has become increasingly important:
cellular and GSM technology, plus, of course, lately 3G, GSMs sister technology, so-to-say.
Another impressive trend has emerged since our last edition: the permanent evolution
in the handheld market, producing fancy mobile phones with cameras, large memory, MP3
players, Email clients and even satellite navigation. These features enable numerous nonvoice
or multimedia applications, from which, of course, only a subset is or will be successful on
the market.
In this third edition, we concentrate again on the architecture, protocols and operation
of the GSM network and outline and explain the innovations introduced in recent years.
The main novelties in this book are the presentation of capacity enhancement methods such
as sectorization, the application of adaptive antennas for Spatial Filtering for Interference
Reduction (SFIR) and Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA), a detailed introduction
to HSCSD and EDGE for higher data rates, and an update of the available GSM services,
specifically introducing the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS).
We are happy to have received, over the past few years, many constructive comments,
and a lot of praise and encouragement. The book has obviously been successfully used by
professionals (especially people beginning careers in the cellular network business) but also
by students including our own who use it as a textbook enhancing their course material.
Our author team has been enlarged with the addition of Dr. Christian Hartmann, an
assistant professor at Technische Universität München, who took most of the load for this
edition.
We thank all of the involved staff from Wiley who convinced us to prepare this updated
version of a book that will hopefully be as successful over the next few years as in the past.