A comparison of the IRIDIUM and AMPS systems

A brief history of progress made in the mobile telecommunications industry is presented. This article compares the IRIDIUM system (which uses satellite operating in the 22.55 to 23.55 GHz range) to the existing Advanced Phone System (AMPS) cellular system. It is concluded that although the two systems' architectures, services provided, and subscriber number formats vary enormously, the methods used for call registration, call setup, call handoff, and cell reuse are surprisingly similar. It is assumed that the reader has a familiarity with the existing AMPS cellular system.