| With the rapid growth of the wireless mobile applications, wireless voice has begun to challenge wireline voice, whereas the desire to access e-mail, surf the Web or download music (e.g., MP3) wirelessly is increasing for wireless data. While second generation (2G) cellular wireless systems, such as cdmaOne1, GSM2 and TDMA3, introduced digital technology to wireless cellular systems to deal with the increasing demand for wireless applications, there is still the need for more spectrally efficient technologies for two reasons. First, wireless voice capacity is expected to continue to grow. Second, the introduction of high-speed wireless data will require more bandwidth.
While the current 2G technologies can support wireless data using cdmaOne circuit switched data or general packet radio system (GPRS), there is clearly the need for more spectrally efficient wireless technology given the limited spectrum available in the wireless bands.
The ability to provide more spectrally efficient voice capacity and spectrally efficient high-speed wireless data has been the focus of third-generation (3G) technologies. |