Overview of global standardization of IMT-2000 and its evolution

The fundamental objective of the standardization activities for International Mobile Telecommunication 2000 (IMT-2000) is to develop a globally unified standard to facilitate mobile multimedia services and global circulation of mobile terminals. To achieve this, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been making extensive efforts over a long period. Also, technical forums such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the 3GPP2 have been carrying out the pertinent practical work in close cooperation with other entities such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the GSM Association (GSMA), and IPv6 Forum. This paper presents an overview of the global standardization activities for IMT-2000 and describes some of the contributions that Fujitsu has made during the standardization activities. Sections 1 to 3 describe the background of the 3GPPs. Sections 4 to 6 describe the scope and objectives of the 3GPPs, their organization, the specifications they have released, and the harmonization activities in the two groups. Section 7 describes Fujitsu's activities in the standardization process, and Section 8 looks at new features for enhancing the performance of systems beyond IMT-2000.