The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System — A Mobile Network for the 21st Century

Abstract

The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is currently being developed within Europe as a candidate third generation system for mobile telecommunications. It will complement and, in many cases, provide integration with the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), which is currently in service within Europe and increasingly world-wide. In order for UMTS to be commercially viable it must:

• • provide broadband flexible bandwidth allocation, supporting multimedia and Internet services at rates of up to 2 Mbit/s, and supplementary services independently of whether the customer is fixed or mobile in a manner that appears transparent to the customer;

• • integrate the provision of cordless, paging and broadband mobile services into one system — UMTS will be provided in business, domestic, vehicular and (multi-operator) public environments;

• • support mass-market service provision efficiently and at low cost;

• • be a global system allowing global roaming and global service provision (current systems tend to be regionally biased, although GSM has enjoyed an increasing level of success globally).