Advanced mobile phone service: Introduction, background, and objectives

This paper introduces a series of papers that describe in detail the Bell System's Advanced Mobile Phone Service (amps). It presents a brief history of mobile radio, highlighting the important events and legal decisions that preceded development of the amps system. The cellular system concept that has been embodied in amps makes large-scale mobile-radio service affordable to a sizable segment of the public. This concept calls for dividing transmission areas into “cells” to handle radio traffic, and, as traffic grows, subdividing those cells into smaller segments without increasing radio spectrum. This paper outlines amps objectives and sets the stage for more detailed articles on its evolution, its design and testing, and maintenance considerations.