Creating the wireless society - Future of mobile telecoms
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications (UMTS) Forum was established in late 1996 with the aim of providing a common vision of the development of the mobile telecommunications sector. The Forum brings together some 60 telecoms operators, manufacturers, regulators and information technology companies. The Forum's primary objective is to bring together all interested parties to set a common direction for the future of mobile telecoms, addressing the legislative, technical, operational and standards aspects of the question. The first task of the Forum will be to define proposals, by mid-1997, for regulatory involvement, in order to provide stable investment conditions and create a proper basis for growth for the entire industry. These initial objectives are in line with Europe's longer term goal of introducing UMTS as a pilot standard in 2002 and its full-scale commercial introduction by 2005. Currently a number of European Community-supported projects are involved in developing new standards for mobile telecoms, in particular UMTS and MBS/WLAN (mobile broadband systems/wireless local area networks). The ACTS specific RTD programme (Advanced Communications Technologies and Services) is particularly involved in R&D in this area.