The creation of standards for global mobile communication: GSM and UMTS standardization from 1982 to 2000

Abstract

GSM and UMTS are the leading standards for digital mobile communications with 5.4 billion users and nearly 90 percent world market share. Success factors for this development were the advanced and timely available system standards developed until the end of the 1990s in Europe. In the pioneer period (1982 to 1992) Phase 1 of the digital GSM standard was developed for the first GSM networks. GSM Phase 2 completed in 1995 provided a platform for an unlimited feature evolution. The GSM Phase 2+ program (1993 to 2000) provided new services, better speech quality and enhanced data services and made GSM a system of generation 2.5. An evolution to the Third Generation based on the GSM core network evolution and a new radio subsystem was conceived in the period from 1996 to 2000. A consensus between Europe, Japan and the North American GSM community on this concept was achieved. The standardization work required an effective global working structure. This was also necessary for the GSM work. To cover these needs, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) was created to develop globally applicable technical specifications. 3GPP exists since the end of 1998 and has developed a series of specification releases for 3G and a new 4G system (LTE).