ABSTRACT
To meet the requirements of the fast-growing demand for wireless services due to the integration of Internet, multimedia, and mobile communications, third-generation (3G) wireless networks are being developed under the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) initiative by the 3GPP and 3GPP2 (Third Generation Pattern Project). The 3GPP is a joint venture of several international standardization organizations from Europe (ETSI), Japan (ARIB/TTC), the United States (T1P1), South Korea (TTA), and China (China Wireless Telecommunication Standard Group). The 3GPP2 was created in parallel with the 3GGP project, with participation from ARIB, TTC, and CWTS. 3GPP2 focuses more on the IS-95 evolution. Third-generation systems developed by 3GPP and 3GPP2 meet the IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunication 2000) requirements including higher data rate and spectrum efficiency than 2G systems, support of both packet-switched (PS) and circuit-switched (CS) data transmission, wide range of services and applications, quality of service differentiation, and flexible physical layer with variable bit rate capabilities to ease the introduction of new services. The most important IMT-2000 proposals are the Universal Mobile for Telecommunications System (UMTS) and the CDMA2000 as successors respectively to GSM and IS-95 systems.
