LONDON, UK The GSMA has endorsed a new Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard dubbed Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB). This standard will allow the group's members to accelerate the adoption of mobile data and broadcast services worldwide. The IMB technology enables the spectrally efficient delivery of broadcast services based on techniques that are aligned with existing frequency-division-duplexing (FDD) wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA). It also allows deployment in the time-division-duplexing (TDD) spectrum. In doing so, it enables a smooth handover between IMB delivery and existing deployed technology.
Operators can use IMB within segments of spectrum that are already allocated with many 3G licenses, but that have remained unused due to a lack of appropriate technology. IMB also reuses many aspects of existing, deployed technologies like UMTS and Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS). This translates into a short development cycle for inclusion in products, thereby resulting in a faster time to market for mobile broadcast services.
The GSMA collaborated with Orange, SingTel, Softbank, Telstra, T-Mobile, and Vodafone, to create a white paper on this standard. The "GSMA IMB Service Scenarios and System Requirements" white paper covers the technology in greater detail including spectral requirements for service deployment and capabilities that must be supported in both the operator's network and devices. It also provides a range of examples of services that could be implemented using IMB as the underlying delivery technology. In combination with 3GPP specifications, the white paper will allow infrastructure and handset manufacturers to develop common implementations of IMB. Those implementations, in turn, will promote mass adoption through the generation of economies of scale and an IMB ecosystem. The white paper is available for download at www.gsmworld.com/documents/GSMA_IMB_WP_final.doc.