Today, the International Telecommunications Union, specifically the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-07), announced that consensus had been reached on the following:

• Inclusion of a 6^th terrestrial radio interface in a new revision of Recommendation ITU-R M.1457 (this is commonly known as the IMT-2000, or third generation, list of standards). The radio interface is identified as TDD WMAN, which is a specific subset of IEEE 802.16e, i.e. WiMAX.

 

T-REGS Note: We had raised this possibility on Slide 9 of this presentation in 2005, which at the time was met with scepticism.

 

• Addition of OFDMA transmission capability to certain existing IMT-2000 radio interfaces.

• Adoption of the term 'IMT-Advanced' as the name of the generation of radio technologies beyond IMT-2000. 

The RA-07 also established the guiding principles that underpin the process for specifying the radio interfaces for IMT-Advanced.

During 2008 and 2009, there will be an open call for candidates for IMT-Advanced to be submitted to the ITU, as well as the start of assessment activities of candidate technologies and systems.

According to the ITU, IMT-Advanced networks could be commercially deployed from 2011 onward. 

The revised Recommendation ITU-R M.1457 has not yet been published, but should become available on this page.