What is the 1G Network?
1G was the first-ever generation of wireless cellular technology or Mobile communication. It was a form of analog telecommunications medium which were introduced in the middle 1980s and kept on ruling the telecommunication world until 2G digital telecommunications stepped in.
The big and ideal difference between the 1G and 2G is that the radio signals transmitted by 1G are analog, while that of 2G is in a digital standard.
However, both telecommunication systems use digital signaling to pair radio towers to the whole telephone system. The voice during a call is encrypted to digital signals in the 2G system, and in 1G, it is only modulated to a higher frequency (150Mhz and above). The underlying merits of digital technology above that of analog implies that 2G networks ultimately stood above them and replaced them.
History of the 1G Network
The predecessor to 1G technology is the mobile radiotelephone, also known as the Zero-G (0G).
The firstly made cellular network in the 1G generation was launched in the year 1979 at japan commercially by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT). Originally in Tokyo, within five years, the NTT network grew so large and covered the whole of Japan, making it the first-ever nationwide 1G network.
Also, the NMT system concurrently launched in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland in the year 1981. The NMT was the initial mobile phone network to emphasize on international roaming. In the year 1983, the 1G network was firstly launched in the United States of America, and it was a Chicago-based Ameritech using the Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone. Many countries then joined in the early to middle 1980s, and this includes the UK, Mexico, and Canada.
In 2018, an NMT limited service in Russia retained the 1G Cellular Network Operation.
Related terms:
- 2G
- 3G
- CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access)
- 4G
- 5G
- Wireless Application Protocol