: Consolidating GSM Phase 1 and Evolving the Services and Features to GSM Phase 2 in ETSI SMG (1992–1995) Philippe Dupuis 1 General When the agreement on the selection of the GSM technology had been achieved some people thought that the rest would be easy. We knew however that producing a set of specifications that would ensure the interpretability of mobile stations produced by any mobile terminal manufacturer, and network infrastructure produced by any manufacturer of network infrastructure, or the interoperability of different elements of the network infrastructure produced by different manufacturers, would be a formidable task, particularly in the relatively short. | GSM and UMTS The Creation of Global Mobile Communication Edited by Friedhelm Hillebrand Copyright 2001 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBNs 0-470-84322-5 Hardback 0-470-845546 Electronic Chapter 4 Consolidating GSM Phase 1 and Evolving the Services and Features to GSM Phase 2 in ETSI SMG 1992-1995 Philippe Dupuis1 General When the agreement on the selection of the GSM technology had been achieved some people thought that the rest would be easy. We knew however that producing a set of specifications that would ensure the interpretability of mobile stations produced by any mobile terminal manufacturer and network infrastructure produced by any manufacturer of network infrastructure or the interoperability of different elements of the network infrastructure produced by different manufacturers would be a formidable task particularly in the relatively short time frame agreed. It is thus not surprising that when the first set of specifications was released in 1990 with a total volume of about 5000 pages it was incomplete and contained many imperfections or errors. It was thus decided to call it phase 1 and to immediately start working on a second release called phase 2. After the testing of pre-operational phase 1 networks in 1991 followed by their commercial opening in 1992 the work of the GSM group focused on the development of the phase 2 specifications which actually lasted until 1995. Several new specifications had to be written but more importantly all existing specifications had to be reviewed and checked for completeness correctness and consistency as well as their ability to evolve in the future. The accent was on the management of the documentation. Precise procedures had to be put in force. This work was possibly less glamorous than the work done during the previous period but it was certainly equally important to the success of GSM particularly outside of Europe. Australia had been one of the first non-European countries to adopt GSM and some Australian colleagues .
