Towards the needs of third-generation systems: Planning the evolution of the GSM platform

This paper gives an overview on the present situation and the future development of cellular mobile services based on, the global system for mobile communications (GSM) in Europe and worldwide. It describes market trends and expected changes, The future evolution as described in Phase 2 and 2+ of the standard will open new market segments and new customer groups for the GSM system. As GSM continues its rapid growth, work on next-system generations, like the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), point the way into the next millennium, The convergence of networks, applications and services will offer unprecedented mobile and personal telecommunication services to customers worldwide.