The Radio Telephone Network C (German: Funktelefonnetz-C, abbreviated as C-Netz), was a first generation

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analo ...

cellular phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

system deployed and operated in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

(at first

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

) by DeTeMobil (formerly of

Deutsche Bundespost The Deutsche Bundespost ( German federal post office) was a German state-run postal service and telecommunications business founded in 1947. It was initially the second largest federal employer during its time. After staff reductions in the ...

Telekom, currently

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom w ...

). It utilized the C-450 standard, originally developed by

Siemens AG Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...

, and was the third and last update of a series of analog mobile phone systems used primarily within Germany, superseding the B-Netz and the A-Netz before it. It has been decommissioned, replaced by both the newer ''D-Netz'' and ''E-Netz'' systems, both based on GSM standards (which are digital) and operating on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands respectively. C-Netz was active from 1985 to 2000, with certain areas until 2001. Since then, all consumer cellular phone services in Germany are digital-only. The dialing code for the C-Netz was 0161, which is no longer in use. As a result, users were not able to transfer their numbers to GSM networks when the C-Netz was shut down.

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

used an unrelated system with the same C-Netz name which instead utilized the

NMT NMT may refer to: Science and technology * Nordic Mobile Telephone, an analogue mobile phone system * Neurologic Music Therapy * Neural machine translation * Network management protocols, in the CANopen#Network management (NMT) protocols, CANopen ...

standard. This differs from previous systems used in Austria ( A-Netz, B-Netz) that were based on German standards.

Timeline

The C-Netz was officially introduced in 1985 (with unofficial trials in 1984) to replace the existing B-Netz/B2-Netz system used in Germany at the time. Due to problems with the B-Netz mobile networks, early adoption of C-Netz was very high, especially in rural areas which had lacked prior B-Netz coverage. However, like other first-generation analog systems, it suffered from poor call quality and was susceptible to

eavesdropping Eavesdropping is the act of secretly or stealthily listening to the private conversation or communications of others without their consent in order to gather information. Etymology The verb ''eavesdrop'' is a back-formation from the noun ''eaves ...

. The system was built up in

and

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under m ...

, but following

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

in 1990, was rapidly built up in the new German states. By December 1988, the service had grown to nearly 100,000 customers, and reached a peak user base of around 800,000 in the early 1990s. It remained popular throughout the decade as a preferred system for mobile car phones, particularly rural

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...

services, where it enjoyed an advantage in reception. However, it was inferior in all other ways to the newer GSM networks, and by the late 1990s Deutsche Telekom stopped accepting new customers. Its user base dropped rapidly; in 1999, it went from 230,000 customers in October to 210,000 customers in November. The C-Netz service was shut down on December 31, 2000. Some cells near the German-Dutch border remained active for several more months but were eventually discontinued as well.

Future use

The C-Netz radio spectrum in Germany (two 6 MHz wide frequency bands) was reallocated for use with

Flarion Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It ow ...

's Flash-OFDM mobile networking standard which launched in 2005. It was primarily used to service Germany's rail service with Internet connectivity under the name Railnet.

Technical information

The C450 standard was developed by Siemens in 1980. It is a 1G analog cellular standard that utilized non-audible in-band signaling, audio scrambling via band-inversion and cell network call queuing when congested. Cellular nodes varied in size, supporting a primary cell size of 15–20 km and micro-cells of 2–3 km in size. Channel bandwidth was typically 20 kHz, although it could be operated in a narrow-band mode of only 12 kHz. As its name implies, it was designed for the 450 MHz

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

frequency range.

Roaming

The C-Netz's C450 standard was a heterogeneous cellular system that inhibited International roaming.

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

used the RadioCom 2000 analog standard while Sweden,

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establishe ...

the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Nether ...

, Switzerland, and Austria (also called C-Netz) used the

analog standard in the 450 or 900 MHz bands.

Usage of C-450 outside Germany

Siemens also deployed C-450 networks for the nationwide cellular networks of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

in 1986 and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

in 1989.https://media.crai.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/05145230/Insights-The-Economics-of-5G-article-6-Open-or-Closed-System-May2021.pdf

References