The wireless market has experienced a phenomenal growth since the second-generation (2G) digital cellular network based on global system for mobile communication technology (GSM) were introduced in 1990s. Since then, GSM has become the dominant global 2G radio access standard. This growth has taken place simultaneously with the large experienced expansion of access to the Internet and its related multimedia services.
Cellular operators now face the challenge to evolve their networks to efficiently support the predicted demand of wireless Internet-based multimedia services. In order to do this, they need to perform a new rapid radio access technologies, capable of delivering such services in a competitive and cost effective way. It is called the Third-Generation (3G) wireless. When the full promise of 3G is realized, wireless users will have global access to a variety of voice, data and video services. Users will be able to access all their communications services easily from anywhere using any terminal. Users will simply choose the most convenient means to communicate, while network operators will choose the most efficient way to transport communications.
Though 3G wireless will change the way people think about communications, the path for carriers to reach 3G is more evolutionary than the previous two generations of wireless have been. First-generation wireless, analog cellular, was an entirely new form of communications that required a system-wide deployment of infrastructure for a market that didn't yet exist. Second-generation wireless was in some ways a more gradual transition. Established companies had the luxury of deploying digital service as an overlay to the analog network. New carriers had to deploy entirely new digital networks, but they had the benefit of a market that was already aware of wireless telephony and an existing demand for the advanced services that digital technology offered. Still, the transition had to happen fairly quickly for established carriers to compete with all-new digital carriers.
Now, just a few years after the transition to digital wireless, another generation of wireless communications is approaching, but it doesn't mean existing systems will become obsolete. Instead, carriers will find new ways to use existing systems more efficiently while adding network elements that provide new services. The key to 3G is convergence - not only a technological convergence of different kinds of communications but, more importantly, a convergence for business reasons.
Cellular operators now face the challenge to evolve their networks to efficiently support the predicted demand of wireless Internet-based multimedia services. In order to do this, they need to perform a new rapid radio access technologies, capable of delivering such services in a competitive and cost effective way. It is called the Third-Generation (3G) wireless. When the full promise of 3G is realized, wireless users will have global access to a variety of voice, data and video services. Users will be able to access all their communications services easily from anywhere using any terminal. Users will simply choose the most convenient means to communicate, while network operators will choose the most efficient way to transport communications.
Though 3G wireless will change the way people think about communications, the path for carriers to reach 3G is more evolutionary than the previous two generations of wireless have been. First-generation wireless, analog cellular, was an entirely new form of communications that required a system-wide deployment of infrastructure for a market that didn't yet exist. Second-generation wireless was in some ways a more gradual transition. Established companies had the luxury of deploying digital service as an overlay to the analog network. New carriers had to deploy entirely new digital networks, but they had the benefit of a market that was already aware of wireless telephony and an existing demand for the advanced services that digital technology offered. Still, the transition had to happen fairly quickly for established carriers to compete with all-new digital carriers.
Now, just a few years after the transition to digital wireless, another generation of wireless communications is approaching, but it doesn't mean existing systems will become obsolete. Instead, carriers will find new ways to use existing systems more efficiently while adding network elements that provide new services. The key to 3G is convergence - not only a technological convergence of different kinds of communications but, more importantly, a convergence for business reasons.
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