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The
capabilities of 3G systems will continue to steadily evolve in the future due
to the growing traffic volume of mobile applications and the pressure to
provide an increasingly cost efficient mobile communication infrastructure.
From a radio access and from a network perspective, it is expected that the
future development of mobile communications systems will be build on and
integrate the systems and technologies already being developed and
deployed,
thereby protecting the enormous investment in mobile systems. This evolution will enhance stability and promote the development of an expanding number of
services and applications.
Industrial
and academic partners are working together on 3G Evolving Technologies (3GET),which is part of the Mobile Internet research framework of the German Ministry
for Education and Research (BMBF). Within this research framework, new
concepts and system architectures are addressed to enable the full-coverage
and efficient use of all resources. Solutions shall be developed which will
result in new specifications, open innovative markets and protect and create
work places.
Mobile
Internet in the context of 3GET means the provision of full-coverage of mobile
voice, data and multi-user services using and combining mobile real-time,
best-effort and broadcasting services. Therefore one main focus is set on the
further development of the 3GPP standard towards a high-bit rate downlink for
the transmission of multimedia broadband services and on the inclusion of new
technologies and requirements as foreseen
in the convergence of digital
broadcast and mobile telecommunication. Based on the vision,
the overall
objectives shared by all partners in 3GET are to
·
Drive the evolution of the 3G radio access
network
·
Investigate the integration of new
broadband radio interfaces, e.g., OFDM and
MC-CDMA, into the existing UMTS
architecture
·
Develop flexible and economic 3G system
concepts for the support of new
media services, and
work
on the unification of IP-based distribution services.
All major new
technologies currently under discussion for the 3G evolution are addressed in 3GET. Air interface and radio network topics are multiple and distributed
antenna systems, multi-hop and relaying techniques, future enhancements of the
downlink and uplink transmission schemes, the integration of new air
interfaces (OFDM, MC-CDMA), multi-standard radio resource management,
multi-standard MAC and generic link layer. For the support of new media
services, topics like multimedia broadcast and multicast services (MBMS),
security and charging for the network access and for the use of media services
are studied.
In addition,
3GET is a platform for the development of a methodology that allows
analyzing and comparing the gains achievable by these new technologies. Metrics used to
quantify the performance both from an end-user as well as from a network
perspective are capacity gains, throughput, coverage, electric-magnetic
exposition and cost.
Scalable
hardware implementations of H.264 for the support of new media services on mobile phones are investigated. These new media services will be delivered via
3G systems and also via digital broadcasting systems like DAB and DVB-H, hence
the unification of IP-based distribution services is addressed. Besides the
evolution of the above-listed technologies, also the evolution of the spectrum
usage by means of spectrum utilization and coexistence studies is
investigated. Selected innovative concepts will be implemented prototypically
in demonstrators
The project
partners are also active in other system concepts within the Mobile Internet research framework and also in 6th framework projects of the European Union.
Thereby and by joint working groups and workshops the linking and exchange of
research results will be achieved.
Expected Results:
·
New concepts for the evolution of the 3G systems will be
developed.
3GET
covers almost all key technologies that are currently discussed for
future mobile communications systems. The ambition of
3GET
is to develop
technical concepts that allow 3G systems to benefit from the potential
performance gains achievable by these innovations. The gains are profoundly
evaluated by simulations.
For this reason, the
3GET
partners plan to
contribute to the standardization and the global discussion on the future of
mobile communications systems.
·
Demonstrators showing some 3GET concepts
·
Contributions to standardization
bodies and working groups (3GPP, ETSI, OMA, Liberty Alliance, WorldDAB)
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