Mobile and personal communications research in the ACTS Programme

Mobility and personal communications is Area 4 of seven principal areas of research identified in the ACTS Programme under the European 4th Framework umbrella. The budget allocated for Area 4 substantially exceeds that available previously in RACE I and II, but preparation of the workplan for this element of ACTS exposed significant differences of view among contributors to the “Task” definition process. On the one hand there was a strong feeling that evolution of GSM/DCS 1800 would meet the targets originally defined for UMTS, but on the other, the perceived need for individual users to have access to bandwidth on demand in the third generation environment pointed to a more radical approach. The workplan which ultimately emerged to some extent accommodates both positions in that it presupposes that by the year 2000 the personal communications environment will offer a continuum of services embracing presently conceived UMTS, the mobile broadband service (MBS) and wireless LAN capability. The emphasis in ACTS has, however, shifted from fundamentals of enabling technology to “services and applications” and to investigating these aspects by offering the new services to communities of potential users via “National Host” networks