Communication systems play a major role in the modern society. Since the 1990ies especially wireless communications is of increasing interest worldwide. For the definition of such systems lots of aspects need to be taken into consideration. Among others frequency band allocation, efficient use of radio and network resources, number of sites required to provide radio coverage, targeted user service characteristics like maximum bit rate and quality and last but not least cost of implementation.

After a short presentation of the wireless communications history the characteristics of the terrestrial mobile radio channel are introduced followed by an overview of basic transmission techniques over such channels.

The second part deals with the TDMA based GSM standard. The role of the network elements being part of the overall network architecture and the services available to the users are introduced. Mobility and security aspects, protocol architecture, signalling procedures are further topics. Lower layer specification and related performance which form the basis for cell planning are discussed in detail.

In the third part the UMTS standard which is based on WCDMA is explained. The presentation follows a similar structure as compared to the GSM presentation which allows comparison of both systems.

OFDM is the next topic and it will become evident why it is of special interest in the case of broadband transmission over dispersive multipath channels.

Finally a brief look to market figures concludes the course, thereby demonstrating the huge potential behind the mobile radio market.