Tài liệu GSM and UMTS (P2) pdf

Chapter 2: The Agreement on the

Concepts and the Basic

Parameters of the GSM Standard

(mid-1982 to mid-1987)

Section 1: The Market Fragmentation in Europe and

the CEPT Initiatives in 1982

Thomas Haug1

2.1.1 The Situation in the Early 1980s: A Spectrum Allocation Opens the

Possibility to Overcome the European Patchwork of Incompatible

Systems

At the World Administrative Radio Conference in 1979 (WARC ’79), a decision was taken to

set aside a block of radio spectrum in the 900 MHz range for use in land mobile commu￾nication systems in Zone 1, which in the terminology of the Radio Regulations means Europe.

Beyond this, little was said about how the spectrum should be used, such as the allocation to

public systems versus private ones.

The European telecommunications market was for a long time badly fragmented. In an

attempt to improve the situation, the organisation of 26 PTT Administrations of Western

Europe and a few other countries (Confe´rence Europe´enne des Postes et Te´le´communica￾tions, abbreviated (CEPT)) was since 1959 actively engaged in standardisation of telecom￾munications, but the progress was often hampered by differences in policy in the member

countries. It is, however, of interest to note that contrary to what is often assumed by

observers outside the PTTs, CEPT was not at all a purely regulatory body, but dealt exten￾sively with technical issues in many fields and had for that purpose set up a large number of

working groups. (In 1989, the technical specification work was transferred to the then newly

created European Telecommunication Specification Institute (ETSI).)

Around 1980 the European situation in mobile communications was that a number of

mutually incompatible mobile systems were in operation or in preparation. The lack of

1 The views expressed in this sectiom are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of his

affiliation entity.

GSM and UMTS: The Creation of Global Mobile Communication

Edited by Friedhelm Hillebrand

Copyright q 2001 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBNs: 0-470-84322-5 (Hardback); 0-470-845546 (Electronic)

compatibility led to other problems, such as small market segments, small number of users in

most systems, high terminal cost and high subscription fees. Consequently, mobile commu￾nications was seen as ‘‘the rich man’s toy’’ in many countries. The idea of one standardised

system, capable of being used throughout a large part of Europe, such as the CEPT member

countries, had never really caught on among the authorities. Unfortunately, the entire tele￾communications field had often been used as an instrument for protecting the national manu￾facturing and operating companies, a fact which had led to a situation where each country

more or less had its own telecom standard, incompatible with the standards in other countries.

The effect of this policy was no exception from the general rule that implementation of

protectionist policies at the expense of standardisation leads to a loss of the economy-of￾scale benefits, a loss borne by but not always directly observable by the user. In the field of

mobile communications, however, (as opposed to standards in the fixed network), interna￾tional standardisation would in addition to the economy-of-scale benefits offer a benefit

which would be directly observable by the user, i.e. the ability to use one’s own equipment

when moving around in foreign networks. This feature was not implemented in any network

except the Nordic NMT system, opened in 1981, which allowed users in Denmark, Finland,

Iceland, Norway and Sweden (later expanded to the Netherlands and Switzerland) to use their

terminals in the countries where the NMT system was installed, and in the German Network

B, which was built in the Benelux countries and Austria. In general, however, the political

and regulatory difficulties concerning use of radio equipment in foreign countries were very

much against creating a Pan-European system which could be used when travelling abroad.

2.1.2 Vienna Meeting of CEPT Telecommunications Commission

(COM-T) in 1982

The NMT network was only in the start-up phase when the Netherlands presented a proposal2

at the meeting of the CEPT Telecommunications Commission in Vienna in June 1982. The

proposal pointed out that unless a concerted action to work out plans for a common European

system was started very soon, there would be a serious risk that the 900 MHz band would be

taken into use for various incompatible systems of many kinds in Europe. The last chance to

build a Pan-European system in the 20th Century would then be lost, since there would be no

sufficiently wide spectrum available below 1 GHZ, i.e. in a part of the radio spectrum which

could be considered suitable for mobile communications, given the state of the technology in

1982.

The Nordic Administrations had recently put the 450 MHz NMT system into operation and

there were already indications that a large number of users would be interested in the feature

of international roaming, a new feature at that time. In addition, a common standard would

obviously result in considerable economic gains. To build a new European network along

these lines had been discussed by the Nordic Administrations, which therefore strongly

supported the Dutch point of view and proposed3 that the total responsibility for progress

and co-ordination of the specification task for a new Pan-European system should be left to a

group of experts.

The CEPT Telecommunications Commission accepted this proposal and decided to start a

new study question, entitled ‘‘Harmonisation of the technical and operational characteristics

12 GSM and UMTS: The Creation of Global Mobile Communication

2 GSM Doc 3/82 and GSM Doc 5/82.

3 GSM Doc 4/82.

of a public mobile communications system in the 900 MHz band’’. Rather than setting up a

new committee, reporting directly to the Com-T according to the proposal, however, it was

decided to entrust the Committee for Co-ordination of Harmonisation (CCH) with the task of

setting up a Special Group for the purpose of studying the question4 and the Swedish offer of

making Thomas Haug available for the chairmanship of the group was accepted. (I was a bit

surprised when I heard this, since nobody had asked me in advance.) In line with the CEPT

naming rules, the new group was given the name Groupe Spe´cial Mobile, GSM for short.

2.1.3 The Com-T Decision and its Consequences

The decision taken by the CEPT Telecommunication Commission was very vague, and in

effect left it to the new group to propose its own terms of reference. Representatives of the

Netherlands and the Nordic Administrations therefore met during the summer of 1982 in

order to write a proposal for an Action Plan, which was subsequently presented to CCH for

approval in November of that year. That document5 was approved and was used as the basis

for the work of GSM for a long time, with a mainly editorial updating of Section 3 in 19856

.

The decision only mentioned ‘‘harmonisation’’, which indicates that the compatibility

aspect was the dominating factor behind the decision, and there is considerable doubt that

the delegates at the CEPT Telecommunications Commission meeting believed that free

circulation of radio users across international borders could be achieved within the foresee￾able future, given the formidable obstacles that existed.

It was clear, anyway, that many more aspects than the mere harmonisation had to be given

great attention if the goal of creating a Pan-European service, acceptable to the broad

European public, was to be reached. When the above mentioned proposal for an Action

Plan was presented by the newly appointed GSM Chairman to CCH in November 1982, it

was therefore stressed that the goal envisaged in the decision taken by the CEPT Telecom￾munications Commission in Vienna, according to which the work should be completed by the

end of 1996, could not be met if major new developments were to be taken into consideration.

A ‘‘harmonisation’’ of mobile communication systems would mainly consist of specifying a

system according to the techniques already established, in other words an analogue system. It

was therefore proposed to the CCH that by the end of 1986, only an outline specification

comprising the basic system parameters for the various parts of the system and their interfaces

should be finalised. Furthermore, it was proposed that at the same time, technical specifica￾tions should be established for the system as a whole, to the point of guaranteeing compat￾ibility. They should comprise the main building blocks of the system, which then were

understood to be the switching centre, the base station, the mobile station and the man–

machine interface. The proposal was accepted by the CCH and subsequently by the CEPT

Telecommunications Commission.

In retrospect, I think that it was a very wise decision which was taken when the aim was

changed to present just an outline specification, not a final, detailed one, by the end of 1986.

Had that not been done, we would probably have been stuck with an analogue system today,

based on somewhat modified versions of the technical solutions that existed in the early

Chapter 2: The Agreement on the Concepts and Parameters of the GSM Standard 13

4 GSM Doc 1/82.

5 Doc T/CCH (82) 21 R, later renamed GSM Doc 2/82.

6 GSM Doc 73/85.

1980s. That system would have been unable to fulfil many of the requirements now placed on

the GSM system.

In the CCH meeting in November 1982, there was a fairly long discussion on whether

GSM should also be mandated to study the possibility of an interim system which would meet

the needs until the new GSM system could be put into operation. Such ideas had been

presented at the CEPT Telecommunications Commission meeting and several countries

felt a need for such a system. In particular Dr Klaus Spindler of the Deutsche Bundespost

warned against spending time and resources on an interim system, and in the end CCH

decided that the resources available to GSM should be concentrated on the new system

since work on an interim system would be a waste of time. Seeing afterwards how much

work there was to be done on the new system, this was undoubtedly the right decision.

2.1.4 Basic Requirements for the New System

The essential contents of the Basic Requirements in the Study Plan of 1982 are given below.

† The system must be able to operate in the entire frequency bands 890–915 and 935–960

MHz.

† Co-existence with the already existing systems in the 900 MHz band must be guaranteed.

† The GSM mobile stations must be able to operate in all participating countries, preferably

all CEPT countries.

† Services other than speech will be required in the new system. Since there is uncertainty

about those services, however, a modular system structure allowing for a maximum of

flexibility will be required. In order to reach this goal, the same philosophy as for ISDN

and OSI should be applied, and standards for protocols, etc. should as far as practicable

seek to obtain compatibility with such developments.

† High spectrum efficiency and state-of-the-art subscriber facilities must be achieved.

† The same facilities as those offered in the public switched telephone and data networks

should be available in the mobile system.

† An identification plan, compatible with the numbering plan and routing possibilities in the

PSTN and PSDN, must be worked out.

† The system must be capable of providing for handheld mobile stations.

† The demand for voice security (encryption) must be taken into account.

† No significant modification of the fixed national telephone networks must be necessary.

† The system must allow the participating countries to maintain their existing charging

systems.

† An internationally standardised signalling system must be used for interconnection of the

switching centres.

The influence of the NMT principles from 1971 in this set of requirements is obvious to

anyone familiar with that system.

Furthermore, an action plan was prepared, listing the various other bodies in and outside

CEPT with whom the GSM should stay in contact in order to avoid repeating work that was

already being done.

14 GSM and UMTS: The Creation of Global Mobile Communication