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UMTS Jobs for Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is one of the third-generation (3G) cell phone technologies. Currently, the most common form uses W-CDMA as the underlying air interface, is standardized by the 3GPP, and is the European answer to the ITU IMT-2000 requirements for 3G cellular radio systems.

Job of UMTS technology is to differentiate itself from competing network technologies, UMTS is sometimes marketed as 3GSM, emphasizing the combination of the 3G nature of the technology and the GSM standard which it was designed to succeed.

UMTS, using W-CDMA, supports up to 14.0 Mbit/s data transfer rates in theory (with HSDPA), although at the moment users in deployed networks can expect a transfer rate of up to 384 kbit/s for R99 handsets, and 3.6 Mbit/s for HSDPA handsets in the downlink connection. This is still much greater than the 9.6 kbit/s of a single GSM error-corrected circuit switched data channel or multiple 9.6 kbit/s channels in HSCSD (14.4 kbit/s for CDMAOne), and—in competition to other network technologies such as CDMA2000, PHS or WLAN—offers access to the World Wide Web and other data services on mobile devices.

Precursors to 3G are 2G mobile telephony systems, such as GSM, IS-95, PDC, PHS and other 2G technologies deployed in different countries. In the case of GSM, there is an evolution path from 2G, called GPRS, also known as 2.5G. GPRS supports a much better data rate (up to a theoretical maximum of 140.8 kbit/s, though typical rates are closer to 56 kbit/s) and is packet switched rather than connection oriented (circuit switched). It is deployed in many places where GSM is used. E-GPRS, or EDGE, is a further evolution of GPRS and is based on more modern coding schemes. With EDGE the actual packet data rates can reach around 180 kbit/s (effective). EDGE systems are often referred as "2.75G Systems".

Since 2006, UMTS networks in many countries have been or are in the process of being upgraded with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), sometimes known as 3.5G. Currently, HSDPA enables downlink transfer speeds of up to 3.6 Mbit/s. Work is also progressing on improving the uplink transfer speed with the High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA). Longer term, the 3GPP Long Term Evolution project plans to move UMTS to 4G speeds of 100 Mbit/s down and 50 Mbit/s up, using a next generation air interface technology based upon OFDMA Technology.

UMTS supports mobile videoconferencing, although experience in Japan and elsewhere has shown that user demand for video calls is not very high.

Other possible uses for UMTS include the downloading of music and video content, as well as live TV. UMTS jobs are available for engineers with experience in WCDMA, GSM, WiMAX and CDMA technologies