Today, the International Telecommunications Union,
specifically the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-07), announced that consensus
had been reached on the following:
- Inclusion of a 6th 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.