"3G TECHNOLOGY"

HISTORY 3G

3G technology is the result of research and development work carried out by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the early 1980s. 3G specifications and standards were developed in fifteen years. The technical specifications were made available to the public under the name IMT-2000. The communication spectrum between 400 MHz to 3 GHz was allocated for 3G. Both the government and communication companies approved the 3G standard. The first pre-commercial 3G network was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1998, branded as FOMA. It was first available in May 2001 as a pre-release (test) of W-CDMA technology.The first commercial launch of 3G was also by NTT DoCoMo in Japan on 1 October 2001, although it was initially somewhat limited in scope, broader availability of the system was delayed by apparent concerns over its reliability.

The first European pre-commercial network was an UMTS  network on the Isle Of Man by MANX TELECOM, the operator then owned by British Telecom and the first commercial network (also UMTS based W-CDMA) in Europe was opened for business by Telenor in December 2001 with no commercial handsets and thus no paying customers.

The first network to go commercially live was by SK Telecom in South Korea on the CDMA-based 1xEV-DO technology in January 2002. By May 2002 the second South Korean 3G network was by KT on EV-DO and thus the South Koreans were the first to see competition among 3G operators.

The first commercial United States 3G network was by Monet Mobile Network on CDMA-2000 1x EV-DO technology, but this network provider later shut down operations. The second 3G network operator in the USA was Verizon Wirelesss in July 2002 also on CDMA2000 1x EV-DO. AT and T mobility is also a true 3G UMTS network, having completed its upgrade of the 3G network to HSUPA.

The first pre-commercial demonstration network in the southern hemisphere was built in ADELAIDE South Australia by m.Net Corporation in February 2002 using UMTS on 2,100 MHz. This was a demonstration network for the 2002 IT World Congress. The first commercial 3G network was launched by Hutchison Telecommunications branded as Three or "3" in June 2003.

Emtel launched the first 3G network in Africa.

PATENTS

It has been estimated that there are almost 8,000 patents declared essential (FRAND) related to the 483 technical specifications which form the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards.Twelve companies accounted in 2004 for 90% of the patents Qualcomm, Ericson, Nokia, Motorola, Philips, Matshusita, Mitsubishi.

Furthermore, the existing 3G PATENT PLATFROM PARTNERSHIP POOL has little impact on FRAND  protection, because it excludes the four largest patents owners for 3G.

FEATURES

• Data rates

ITU does not actually clearly specify minimum required rates, nor required average rates, nor what modesof the interfaces qualify as 3G, so various data rates are sold as '3G' in the market. Compare with 3.5G and 4G. In India, 3G is defined by telecom service providers as minimum 2 Mbit/s to maximum 28 Mbit/s.

• Security

3G networks offer greater security than their 2G predecessors. By allowing the UE (User Equipment) to authenticate the network it is attaching to, the user can be sure the network is the intended one and not an impersonator. 3G networks use the KASUMI block cipher  instead of the older A5/1 stream cipher. However, a number of serious weaknesses in the KASUMI cipher have been identified.

• Applications of 3G

The bandwidth and location information available to 3G devices gives rise to applications not previously available to mobile phone users. Some of the applications are: 
1. global positioning system  
2. location-based services  
3. mobile TV 
4. telemedicine 
5. video conferencing
6. video on demand

The standard applies to the use of 3G:
1 W-CDMA
2 CDMA2000
3 CDMA2001
4 TD-CDMA / TD-SCDMA
5.-136 UWC (often implemented with EDGE
6 DECT

The main services offered by 3G technology are:
1. Video Call
2 Real Time Video Sharing
3 VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
4. Multiplayer Games
5. Browsing6. Audio & Video Streaming
7 Content Download