GSM standards [Under GSM]
Initiated by ETSI, GSM standards was later maintained by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project - created for 3G standardisation based on GSM in 1998). These standards were initially developed in phases (phase 1, phase 2), later named as releases (R96, R97, R98, R99) and then evolved into feature based releases (R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10). The evolution has been from GSM to GPRS (R97) to EDGE/3G-UMTS-W-CDMA (R99) to HSPA (R6) to LTE (R8/9) to LTE-Advanced.
The standards are categorised in series (starting series 1). Later series specification may override the earlier series specification. For example 24.007 overriding 4.07. Versions numbering is simple for example, document for 24.007, Rel 99, version 9.0 is named as "24007-390". 3 indicate release 99.
3GPP website: www.3gpp.org. Standards are available 3gpp specifications home or directly at 3gpp FTP site. Latest list of standards w.r.t. release and latest version numbers are available in release version matrix. Also check out release page of features added by release.
Let us study GSM network architecture in next article.
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