An objective comparison of second generation cellular systems-GSM, IS-136 and IS-95

With the advances made in the areas of digital communication, DSP and VLSI, mobile communication services at affordable rates have become a reality. With the shift to digital communications which provide better spectral utilization, several systems providing mobile cellular telecommunications have emerged. Three standards-GSM, IS-136 and IS-95-have come to be the contenders for mobile communication markets worldwide. This paper compares the digital operations of air interfaces of these standards w.r.t. modulation schemes and their spectral efficiency, physical and logical channels, mobile initialization procedures, authentication methods, power control mechanisms, handoff scenarios and capacity evaluations.