CDMA has been quite successful as a second-generation cellular system,having achieved widespread use in particular in North America and Korea by the turn of the twenty-first century.
4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading
telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The
organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the
advancement and full capabilities of the LTE mobile broadband
technology and its evolution beyond to 5G, throughout the
ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly
connected devices in the Americas. 4G Americas, the voice of 5G for
the Americas, is invested in leading 5G development for the
Americas and maintaining the current global innovation lead in
North America with LTE technology.
The idea of the book was born during the time when the second generation cellular system was looming on the horizon.At that time ,the world was divided into three distinct camps as far as looking for a standard: Europe North America and Japan.
The first Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Wideband Code Division
Multiple Access (WCDMA) networks were launched during 2002. By the end of 2005
there were 100 open WCDMA networks and a total of over 150 operators having
frequency licenses for WCDMA operation. Currently, the WCDMA networks are
deployedinUniversalMobileTelecommunicationsSystem(UMTS)bandaround2GHz
in Europe and Asia including Japan and Korea. WCDMA in America is deployed in the
existing 850 and 1900 spectrum allocations while the new 3G band at 1700/2100 is
expected to be available in the near future. 3GPP has defined the WCDMA operation
also for several additional bands, which are expected to be taken into use during the
coming years.
This books presents the research work of COST 273 Towards Mobile Broadband Multimedia
Networks, hence, it reports on the work performed and on the results achieved within the project
by its participants. The material presented here corresponds to the results obtained in four years
of collaborative work by more than 350 researchers from 137 institutions (universities, operators,
manufacturers, regulators, independent laboratories and others – a full list is provided in Appendix
B) belonging to 29 countries (mainly European, but also from Asia and North America) in the area of
mobileradio. Theobjectiveofpublishingtheseresultsasabookisessentiallytomakethemavailable
to an audience wider than the project. In fact, it just follows a ‘tradition’ of previous COST Actions
in this area of telecommunications, i.e. COST 207, 231 and 259.
RFID networks are currently recognized as one a research area of priority. Research
activities related to RFID technology have been booming recently. A number of ongoing
projects are being funded in Europe, Asia, and North America. According to leading
market analysts, the development of the RFID market is projected to increase from
approximately $3 billion in 2005 to $25 billion in 2015. Several countries have dedicated
innovation programs to support and develop RFID systems and related technologies: the
RFID initiative in Taiwan, Ubiquitous Japan and the NSF SBIR program in the USA.
The EU has recently advertised its Strategic Research Roadmap concerning the Internet of
Things, which first of all refers to the RFID technology before being extended to commu-
nicating devices as in M2M (Machine to Machine). In this roadmap, several application
domains have been identified:
