The multicall service to support multimedia services in the UMTS networks

The paper presents a new approach to support multimedia in the circuit-switched sections of 3G networks. The approach is based on a supplementary service named `multicall´, which was developed in the 3GPP. The multicall service allows users to control dynamically parallel network connections in the CS domain. We describe the DS-WCDMA technique, which enables the wide bandwidth of the 3G air interface. We discuss how the GSM/GPRS system supports multicall operation differently as it provides multiple connections with the GPRS network. Furthermore, we present alternative techniques for multimedia communication in the UMTS. Finally, we consider how multicall may provide an enhanced way to utilize the 3G network for multimedia applications, while it also provides ways to optimize the user´s costs and to reduce the network load. Multicall with multimedia gives many new options for building new types of applications, network services and user equipment