UMTS: a third generation mobile system

UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) is a system capable of providing a variety of mobile services (up to 2 Mbps) now being offered by (dedicated) paging, cordless, and cellular communications systems separately. UMTS is to be operational in domestic, business, vehicular, and (multi-operator) public environments. Maximum integration with the IBCN (Integrated Broadband Communications Network, also referred to as B-ISDN) is considered. UMTS is currently under study by the RACE project 2066 (MONET) taking the work of the RACE project 1043 (UMTS) as a starting point. The paper describes new concepts in mobile system design considered for UMTS. Both radio aspects including handover and network aspects are dealt with. The relationship with the CCIR FPLMTS (Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications System) is briefly addressed