3GPP

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaboration agreement that was established in December 1998. It is a co-operation between ETSI (Europe), ARIB/TTC (Japan), CCSA [1] (China), ATIS (North America) and TTA (South Korea).

The scope of 3GPP is to make a globally applicable third generation (3G) mobile phone system specification within the scope of the ITU's IMT-2000 project. 3GPP specifications are based on evolved GSM specifications, now generally known as the UMTS system.

Note that 3GPP should not be confused with 3GPP2, which specifies standards for another 3G technology based on IS-95 (CDMA), commonly known as CDMA2000.

1 Standards
2 Deployment
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Standards

3GPP standards are structured as Releases. Discussion of 3GPP thus frequently refers to the functionality in one release or another.

Release 98 and earlier releases specify pre-3G GSM networks
Release 99 specify the first UMTS 3G networks, incorporating a CDMA air interface
Release 4 - originally Release 2000 - adds features including an All IP Core Network
Release 5 introduces IMS and HSDPA
Release 6 integrates operation with Wireless LAN networks and adds HSUPA, MBMS, enhancements to IMS such as Push to talk over Cellular (PoC), GAN
Release 7 focuses on decreasing latency and improvements to real-time applications like VoIP.
Release 8 and onwards are currently under development.

Each Release incorporates hundreds of individual standards documents, each of which may have been through many revisions. Current 3GPP standards incorporate the latest revision of the GSM standards. 3GPP's plans for the future beyond Release 7 are currently in the early stages of development under the title Long Term Evolution ("LTE").

3GPP documents are made available freely on the organisation's web site. Whilst 3GPP standards can be bewildering to the newcomer, they are a remarkably complete and detailed resource and provide insight into how the cellular industry works. They cover not only the radio part ("Air Interface") and Core Network, but also billing information and speech coding down to source code level. Cryptographic aspects (authentication, confidentiality) are also freely specified in detail. 3GPP2 offer similar information about their system..

[edit] Deployment

3GPP systems are deployed across much of the established GSM market (primarily Release 99 systems to date). As of 2005, 3GPP systems are seeing deployment in the same markets as 3GPP2 systems (for example, North America). Industry commentators speculate constantly about the competing systems, with the outcome far from clear.