The background to PCN [personal communication networks]

A new era in public mobile telecommunications in the UK began in January 1985 with the commencement of service of the two cellular operators Cellnet and Racal Vodafone. This was also a unique introduction of competition to the public telecommunications field. Although Mercury had been licensed to compete with BT in the provision of fixed services this was the first case of the two operators starting on an equal footing. The story so far has been one of continued growth and falling equipment prices. Clearly there was potential for further systems and that has paved the way for the birth of personal communications networks (PCN). The paper looks briefly at the background to PCN in terms of its evolution, standards and characteristics