In 1998, the ITU called for Radio Transmission Technology (RTT) proposals for IMT-2000 (originally called Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications Systems [FPLMTS]), the formal name for the third generation (3G) standard. ITU completed its Recommendations in late 1999 and sanctioned five terrestrial IMT-2000 standards.

3G System Capabilities

Capability to support circuit and packet data at high bit rates:

• 144 kbps or higher in high mobility (vehicular) traffic
• 384 kbps for pedestrian traffic
• 2 Mbps or higher for indoor traffic

**Interoperability and Roaming

Common Billing/User Profiles:**

• Sharing of usage/rate information between service providers
• Standardized call detail recording
• Standardized user profiles

Capability to determine geographic position of mobiles and report it to both the network and the mobile terminal

Support of Multimedia Services/Capabilities:

• Fixed and variable rate bit traffic
• Bandwidth on demand
• Asymmetric data rates in the forward and reverse links
• Multimedia mail store and forward
• Broadband access up to 2 Mbps