Technology for Future Personal Radio Communication

Mobile communication have experienced a tremendous success over the last few years. This will no doubt continue. So far, the systems have been analogue and telephony has been the main service. Development in three areas will to a very large extent contribute to further progress. Digital systems are being specified (e.g the Paneuropean GSM system). Digital systems facilitate improved privacy and new services. Spectrum efficient modulation and coding techniques increase traffic capacity and reliability of service. The development in microelectronics improves the relation between performance and volume/weight. Personal communication will become feasible. The limited power available in a personal terminal requires a new type of infrastructure which cannot easily be combined with existing mobile telephone systems. New systems may have to find frequencies in higher frequency bands where the propagation properties are not very well known. Also from equipment point of view for mobile communication new technology has to be developed. The paper covers some of the forseen developments.