The Status and Development of the GSM Specifications
Friedhelm Hillebrand · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2006
GSM, the Global System for Mobile Communication is the world market leader for digital mobile communication systems with 62 % market share and more than 70 million users in 108 countries. The GSM success is caused by a number of GSM features: comprehensive services, system features, high quality, capacity and security. In addition the equipment cost for terminals and networks is low due to vendors’ choice and market volume. A key factor for the success were the GSM specifications (and standards), since they provided a common, comprehensive, complete and stable system specification. The ongoing specification work for the evolution of GSM aims at supporting substantial growth and the exploitation of new market segments. In addition it is indispensable to maintain the integrity of the GSM platform in 900,1800 and 1900 MHz. The content of GSM phase 2, the present working solution is described. The GSM Phase 2 + program brings GSM from second generation half the way to the third generation. The three GSM Releases’ 96,97 and 98 provide new services, new service creation tools, new terminal and network features like high speed data, new speech codecs, the use of Java like concepts in terminals and on smart cards (SIM). An outlook on the evolution towards Third Generation is given.