Umts

by Javier Sánchez, Mamadou Thioune

During the first decade of this new millennium, it is estimated that more than Oe1/4100 billion will be invested in the third generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) in Europe. This fact represents an amazing challenge not only from a technical perspective but also from a commercial perspective. As an evolution of the GSM/GPRS standards, the UMTS proposes enhanced and new services including high-speed internet access, video-telephony and multimedia application like streaming. Based on the latest updates on the 3GPP specifications, this book investigates the differences of a GSM/GPRS network compared with a UMTS network as well as the technical aspects that ensure their interoperability. Written by experts in the field, this book gives detailed description of the elements in the UMTS network architecture: the User Equipment (UE), the UMTS Radio Access Network (UTRAN) and the core network. The completely new protocols based on the needs of the new Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) air interface are highlighted by considering both Frequency and Time-Division Duplex modes. The book further introduces the key features of existing topics in Releases 5, 6 and 7 such as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), WLAN interconnection and Multicast/Broadcast Multimedia Subsystem (MBMS)."

ebook

First published January 1, 2007