Some experts started working on, or maybe we should say dreaming about, third generation mobile communications in the mid-1980s, even before second generation mobile communications took shape in GSM. UMTS was invented then. It was initially just a vague concept, something which had to one day take over from GSM and therefore had to be superior to GSM. There was also a view that the capacity of GSM would be exhausted just after a few years and that UMTS should thus follow very quickly. This was not a workable proposal as the industry could not throw away GSM developments and. | Chapter 8 The UMTS Standardisation Work in ETSI Section 1 The Initial Work up to Spring 1996 Philippe Dupuis1 Introduction Some experts started working on or maybe we should say dreaming about third generation mobile communications in the mid-1980s even before second generation mobile communications took shape in GSM. UMTS was invented then. It was initially just a vague concept something which had to one day take over from GSM and therefore had to be superior to GSM. There was also a view that the capacity of GSM would be exhausted just after a few years and that UMTS should thus follow very quickly. This was not a workable proposal as the industry could not throw away GSM developments and adopt a new system so rapidly. This initial UMTS concept had to evolve into a workable proposal. The main purpose of this section is to show how this happened. The Genesis of the UMTS Concept The UMTS concept has emerged from the R D work funded by the CEC under the RACE program. In parallel at the ITU and particularly in the Comité Consultatif International Radio CCIR interest emerged for the elaboration of a single world standard for public mobile communications. This rapidly focused on next generation . digital solutions. It is interesting to recall the various activities which took place in these two areas. The RACE Projects The RACE programme was initiated by the CEC to fund R D in the area of telecommunications. It consisted of a collection of precompetitive co-operative R D projects associating companies laboratories and universities belonging to several countries of the European communities. It generally addressed broadband communications. Initially the goal was called B-ISDN but later it became Integrated Broadband Communications IBC . There was a 1 The views expressed in this section are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliation entity. 180 GSM and UMTS The Creation of Global Mobile Communication mobile .
