The rough road to IMT-2000 RTT standard

Third-generation mobile systems are driven by the vision of information at any time, at any place, in any form. Research efforts have been aligned with efforts in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and other bodies to find standards and recommendations which ensure that mobile communications of the future have access to multimedia capabilities and service quality similar to the fixed network. A formal request by the ITU-R for submission of candidate radio transmission technology (RTTs) for IMT-2000 was distributed by the ITU, with a closing date of June 1998. The growing rewards from winning, or to some degree, controlling the outcome of the standardization process has made reaching consensus on standards much more difficult. Though the road was rough, a comprehensive set of radio interface specifications, incorporating the flexibility required to seamlessly evolve current mobile networks towards IMT-2000, was approved in late 1999.