GSM through 5G NR — network architecture, base stations, small cells, massive MIMO and beamforming, and how the core network evolved into a software-defined, sliceable platform.
Every cellular generation from GSM onward reuses the same underlying hierarchy — a radio site, a controller function, and a core network switch — even as the multiple-access scheme, spectrum, and architecture around it changed completely. This module traces that thread from GSM's TDMA time slots through WCDMA's code-domain separation, LTE's flat all-IP EPC, and 5G NR's dual sub-6/mmWave spectrum strategy, then moves into how a real base station site is actually built: sectorization, the BBU/RRH split, small-cell densification, and the massive MIMO and beamforming techniques that multiply capacity from the same spectrum.
By the end of this module you should be able to explain why 5G's eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC use cases pull network design in three different directions, and how network slicing lets one physical 5G deployment actually serve all three — the architectural payoff of the core-network evolution this module covers in full.