The GSM Association and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC) announced they signed a memorandum of understanding to work toward worldwide interoperability between GSM and
TDMA technologies.
The nearly 490 GSM and TDMA carriers currently have 290 million subscribers worldwide.
Member companies of the two associations will cooperate on promoting common mobile handsets and interoperable network platforms that can allow GSM and TDMA customers to roam from country to country and across the two technologies and various frequency bands.
Handsets that can be used on both GSM and TDMA networks should be commercially available in the second half of 2000, said Sheila Mickool, UWCC president, although she declined to name specific companies developing prototypes.
The announcement, which has been under discussion for the last 18 months, follows the GSM Association’s Telecom ’99 announcement that it will establish a World Roaming Forum to address roaming issues among wireless protocols.
During August, more than 400 million roaming calls were handled by GSM operators, said the group. Michael Stocks, chairman of the GSM Association, said the group is uniquely suited to the task of establishing a forum.
“Already our standard has shown it is flexible enough to be integrated with the satellite operators, all of whom have joined our association-as indeed have the emerging third-generation network operators,” Stocks said at Telecom. “Now I feel it is important that we examine ways of working with other existing standards for the benefit of mobile phone users everywhere.”
The GSM Association also approved Transferred Accounting Procedure 3 billing software, which is important for roaming. Early next year, it plans to implement a certification forum for testing terminal interoperability.
At its plenary meeting in October in Montreal, the association announced a new branding logo, GSM Global Network.
