- summary of the history of how IMT-2000 was developed and lead to 3G UMTS and CDMA2000 and overview of 3GPP releases.
With GSM being developed and deployed, the eyes of the development community started to look at the next cellular developments which would provide greater more functionality and greater levels of efficiency. The UMTS 3G history shows how these basic ideas turned into reality and changed the way in which mobile telecommunications was used. The UMTS 3G history shows that despite many set backs, UMTS was able to become established as the major 3G technology providing new standards in cellular telecommunications performance, functionality, and convenience. The 3G history shows that UMTS became the dominant 3G technology, setting the foundations for a single worldwide 4G standard in future years.
1998 but during early 1999 it was necessary to gain some form of consensus. Once this was complete, by the end of 1999 the specification for the radio Transmission Technology was released by the end of 1999. Although many proposals were submitted there were several that were considerably more important than others. These included:
UMTS / WCDMA: The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System using wideband CDMA was the successor to the highly successful GSM system that was initially deployed around Europe, but was spreading rapidly worldwide. CDMA2000: This scheme was the successor to the cdmaOne system defined under Interim Standard IS-95 which was the first system to be deployed using CDMA technology. TDS-CDMA: This was a scheme developed in China that adopted many elements of the GSM / UMTS technology but was optimised for Time Division Duplex.
NB: The GSM evolution, EDGE also complied to the IMT-2000 definition for a 3G standard, although it was more commonly referred to as a 2.75G standard. Of the main IMT-2000 systems, history has shown that UMTS has became the most widely deployed of the 3G systems. It offered global roaming as well as being designed to enable more applications than many of its competitors. Also as it followed on from GSM, it had a very wide base on which to build.
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1999
This release added features including an all-IP core network. It was originally referred to as Release 2000 This 3GPP release introduced the IP Multimedia Subsystem, IMS and High Speed Packet Downlink Access, HSDPA This release of the standard integrated the operation of UMTS with wireless LAN networks and added enhancements to IMS (including Push to talk over Cellular), Generic Access Network, GAN, and it added High Speed Packet Uplink Access, HSUPA. This Release of the 3GPP standard detailed improvements to QoS for applications such as VoIP. The release also detailed upgrades for High Speed Packet Access Evolution, HSPA+, as well as changes for EDGE Evolution and it also provided interfaces to enable operation with Near Field Communication, NFC technology. 3GPP Release 8 provided the details for the LTE System Architecture Evolution, SAE, an all-IP network architecture providing the capacity and low latency required for LTE and future evolutions.
3GPP This added further enhancements to the SAE as well as allowing for End 2009 Release 9 WiMax and LTE/UMTS interoperability. 3GPP Release Estimated This release of the 3GPP standard detailed the 4G LTE Advanced 2010 technology.
3GPP Release 10
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Note: Pre-Release 98 releases refer to pre 3G, i.e. GSM, GPRS, EDGE standards.
3G spectrum auctions
One of the main disasters that took place within the telecommunications industry was the sale of spectrum for the 3G licences within Europe. With operators moving towards the development and ultimate deployment of the forthcoming 3G services cellular telecommunications operators within Europe 3G spectrum auctions were set up at the beginning of 2000. Although a similar 3G spectrum auction had been abandoned previously in the USA because it was felt the costs were too high for the operators to bear, nevertheless Europe still went ahead. However the European governments, in particular the UK and Germany looked at the sale as an opportunity for levying a windfall tax. The 3G spectrum auction was offered on a sealed bid basis. Knowing that in order to continue their operations, the cellular operators would need to secure a licence for the 3G spectrum, this forced the prices very high bids. Accordingly the network operators took risks and also incurred high levels of debt. In the UK a total of British pounds, GBP 22.5 billion was raised and around GBP 30 billion in Germany. This meant that the operators were saddled with huge debts that would take many years to pay off even assuming that 3G was a great success. On top of the crippling debts incurred for the spectrum, network operators also had to invest in the 3G infrastructure and its deployment. As a result the network operators were very keen to see 3G developments speeded up so that they could start to see a return on their investment and the interest charges they were paying. However the delays in the development of 3G handsets proved to be a major hurdle. Subsequent auctions in other areas of the world met with much lower bids. Network operators could not afford the amounts they paid for spectrum in Europe. In particular those auctions in Australia and New Zealand raised much smaller amounts. Other countries used other more tenable business models. For example in Hong Kong a profit sharing approach was adopted. This avoided the huge up-front costs of the auctions elsewhere.
1998 - September 1998 The first call was completed in DoCoMo's trial network at the Nokia R&D establishment near Tokyo, Japan. 1999 - February Nokia successfully it has tested what was claimed to be the first WCDMA call through the public switched telephone network in the world at the Nokia test network in Finland using a WCDMA terminal, WCDMA base station subsystem and Nokia GSM Mobile with switching centres connected to the PSTN. 2001 - April Ericsson and Vodafone UK claimed to have made the world's first WCDMA voice call over commercial network 2001 - June NTT DoCoMo launched a trial 3G service.
With the development milestones showing significant progress, the first deployments started. These were slow at first, but the momentum soon started to increase:
2001 - October NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial WCDMA 3G mobile network. 2001 - December The first commercial European network was opened for business by Telenor, although no handsets were available immediately. 2003 - March On 3rd March 2003, (03-03-03), the UK operator 3 launched the first 3G service in the UK.