TABLE OF CONTENTS As second generation systems started to reach their limits in terms of spectral efficiency along with the increasing demands for higher data rate services, a need emerged for improved networks that can provide these future requirements. This led to the development of 3G systems [5, 9], with the following main objectives:
Provide data rates from 144 Kbps up to 384 Kbps for mobility scenarios;
Provide data rates up to 2 Mbps for limited mobility and fixed wireless scenarios;
Provide higher spectral efficiency compared with 2G systems;
Support multiple simultaneous services (e.g., speech, high-speed data).
There are currently two major standards adopted for 3G systems, both of which are based on CDMA, namely CDMA2000 and WCDMA. Another emerging technology also based on CDMA is the time division synchronous CDMA (TD-SCDMA).
The CDMA2000 family of standards is a wideband spread spectrum radio interface that uses CDMA technology to meet the objectives of 3G systems while maintaining backward compatibility with IS-95 based systems. This means that mobile handsets designed according to the IS-95 standard are capable of operating in a CDMA2000 system and vice versa. The first component of the CDMA2000 standard is called 1X radio transmission technology (1X RTT) because it uses an RF carrier of 1.25 MHz just like IS-95 based systems, hence the 1X, which is also referred to as spreading rate (SR)1. The key benefits of the 1XRTT technology standardized under the name of IS-2000 [10, 11] compared with IS-95A/B standards [7]...
