TABLE OF CONTENTS The choice of the term "UMTS" that means Universal Mobile Telecommunications System was not fortuitous. It was a matter of marking the difference with its 2G predecessors, still considered as mobile telephony systems. The Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) strongly contributed to making mobile phones become an everyday life product. Its first goal that was of providing high-quality voice services was achieved. GPRS and EDGE technologies are part of the second phase named GSM Phase 2+ and they are setting up the basis for providing multimedia services and high-speed access to Internet - services enhanced within UMTS standard. Table 2.1 summarizes the key milestones in the recent history of UMTS.
| February 1992 | WARC-92 allocates 230 MHz spectrum around 2 GHz for IMT-2000 use |
| 1987 1995 | RACE I and RACE II projects are carried out in Europe aiming at the technical definition of UMTS |
| 1995 1999 | The EU funded ACTS/FRAMES projects striving for the definition of two radio access technologies denoted FMA1 and FMA2 which can be seen as the predecessors of UTRA/TDD and UTRA/FDD, respectively |
| December 1996 | Start of the development of specifications for UMTS under ETS1 SMG2 |
| June 1998 | Up to 10 terrestrial radio access technologies are submitted to the ITU-R to be part of IMT-2000 |
| October 1998 | ITU-R selects the current IMT-2000 radio interfaces: UTRA/FDD, UTRA/TDD, TD-SCDMA, cdma2000, UWC-136 and DECT. A number 3G satellite components are also identified |
| December 1998 | The first meetings of the... |
