TABLE OF CONTENTS It is with the services offered by UMTS that the end-users can perceive the differences from 2G/2.5G predecessors: mobile service subscribers are less sensitive to the amazing technical feats of each new technology than to the benefits this can provide to them. We have to keep in mind that besides video-telephony, other UMTS services like voice telephony, browsing (WAP, HTTP), messaging (SMS, MMS, email, push-to-talk), streaming (music, video), data synchronization (calendars, contacts, files) and location-based services can also be offered with GPRS and EGPRS technologies. What is clear is that UMTS additionally proposes higher data rates and offers more flexibility in the radio interface to handle simultaneous connections (combined packet and circuit) with different levels of QoS (bit rate, error rate, delay, etc.).
GSM and GPRS have not yet succeeded in breaking the common service provision scheme where the mobile operator offers access and switching functions as well as all the associated mobile services. This approach restrains the role that third party service providers could play in accelerating the deployment of new services and in promoting service differentiation. Generally speaking, UMTS standards do not specify all the services the network shall provide but rather, they define a set of tools enabling (in theory) anybody to develop any kind of new service that can be put on top of the UMTS bearer services discussed in Chapter 2. This chapter lists and describes the services standardized in UMTS Phase 1 (based on Release 99 specifications) and investigates those...
