• Second generation (like GSM) enabled voice traffic to go wireless • In several countries there are now more mobile phones than landline (wired) phones • Data handling capability of 2nd generation is limited • Third generation: should provide high bit rate services that enable transmission and reception of high quality images and video and provide acces to the WEB • Third generation: referred to as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) • WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) is the main third generation air interface in the world • Specification created in 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) which is joint standardisation project of Europe, Japan, Korea, USA and China. • In 3GPPWCDMA is called UTRA (Universal Terrestrial Radio Access) FDD and TDD • Work for 3rd generation started in 1992 when the WARC (World Administrative Radio Conference) of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) identified frequencies around 2 GHz for 3G • Withing the ITU, 3G was named IMT2000 (International Mobile Telephony- 2000) • The target of IMT was to have a single worldwide standard • WCDMA will be used by Europe, Japan, Korea in the WARC-92 spectrum allocated for 3G • In North America, spectrum auctioned for 2G. No specific spectrum for IMT-2000