The realistic network evolution towards third generation mobile communications

The growth in mobile communications has seen the market expand from just mobile telephony to include greater data and multi-media content. The availability of increased spectrum for the launch of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) has enabled the vision of seamless mass market, multi-media mobile telecommunications to be a realisable goal. UMTS will be designed to support full mobility, multi environment access and the holy grail of the virtual home environment (VHE: the ability of a visited network to appear like the user´s “home” environment). This paper proposes technical evolution steps towards UMTS that can enable operators to evolve their present network technologies to support the future service, capability and market needs of the VHE/UMTS user from their GSM platforms. By addressing and incorporating the technology steps and issues highlighted in this paper, the evolved networks will be able to develop UMTS support in a smooth evolutionary manner rather than a costly revolutionary or bespoke development approach