A.4. The Rise of 3G

Also in the 1990s, the European telecom community started defining the next generation of mobile technology, first through ETSI and then through a new organization called 3rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP). The standard developed by 3GPP is called Universal Mobile Telecommunications Standard (UMTS), and though based fundamentally on Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) technology, was carefully designed to allow both GSM and CDMA operators to evolve their networks efficiently from their installed infrastructure to the new standard. This would allow operators around the world to converge to a new common standard for 3G.^[2]

^[2] Except for operators in the People's Republic of China, where the government mandated its own version of UMTS, called Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). TD-SCDMA uses TDMA as well as CDMA to provide some unique advantages for data traffic. It also avoids the need for PRC handset makers to pay royalties for most WCDMA intellectual property.

In the early 2000s, operators spent huge sums of money to purchase spectrum for 3G wireless networks. 3G networks are now being deployed worldwide, and over the next few years, new smartphones (including Android-based phones) will all incorporate 3G technologies.