Tài liệu GSM and UMTS (P4) doc

Chapter 4: Consolidating GSM

Phase 1 and Evolving the

Services and Features to GSM

Phase 2 in ETSI SMG

(1992–1995)

Philippe Dupuis1

4.1 General

When the agreement on the selection of the GSM technology had been achieved some people

thought that the rest would be easy. We knew however that producing a set of specifications

that would ensure the interpretability of mobile stations produced by any mobile terminal

manufacturer, and network infrastructure produced by any manufacturer of network infra￾structure, or the interoperability of different elements of the network infrastructure produced

by different manufacturers, would be a formidable task, particularly in the relatively short

time frame agreed. It is thus not surprising that, when the first set of specifications was

released in 1990 with a total volume of about 5000 pages, it was incomplete and contained

many imperfections or errors. It was thus decided to call it phase 1 and to immediately start

working on a second release called phase 2. After the testing of pre-operational phase 1

networks in 1991, followed by their commercial opening in 1992, the work of the GSM group

focused on the development of the phase 2 specifications which actually lasted until 1995.

Several new specifications had to be written, but more importantly, all existing specifica￾tions had to be reviewed and checked for completeness, correctness and consistency as well

as their ability to evolve in the future. The accent was on the management of the documenta￾tion. Precise procedures had to be put in force. This work was possibly less glamorous than

the work done during the previous period but it was certainly equally important to the success

of GSM, particularly outside of Europe. Australia had been one of the first non-European

countries to adopt GSM and some Australian colleagues were sitting at our meetings to make

sure that we would deliver a workable product. The volume of the work on phase 2 was

formidable. In addition we invented a concept for further evolution, known as phase 2 1 , and

1 The views expressed in this section 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)