LTE Security, Second Edition

Chapter 1

Overview of the Book

Mobile telecommunications systems have evolved in a stepwise manner. A new cellular radio technology has been designed once per decade. Analogue radio technology was dominant in the 1980s and paved the way for the phenomenal success of cellular systems. The dominant second-generation system Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM, or 2G) was introduced in the early 1990s, while the most successful third-generation system, 3G—also known as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), especially in Europe—was brought into use in the first years of the first decade of the new millennium.

At the time of writing, the fourth generation of mobile telecommunications systems is being commercially deployed. Its new radio technology is best known under the acronym LTE (Long Term Evolution). The complete system is named SAE/LTE, where SAE (System Architecture Evolution) stands for the entire system, which allows combining access using the new, high-bandwidth LTE technology with access using the legacy technologies such as GSM, 3G and High Rate Packet Data (HRPD). The technical term for the SAE/LTE system is Evolved Packet System (EPS), and we shall be using this term consistently in the book. The brand name of the new system has been chosen to be LTE, and that is the reason why the title of the book is LTE Security.

With the pervasiveness of telecommunications in our everyday lives, telecommunications security has also moved more and more to the ...