ETSI EP DECT Report

The ETSI Engineering Project (EP) DECT is headed up by Guenther Kleindl.  
The information below is taken from his report in the latest ETSI Annual Report, published June 2000

"DECT is proving to be one of the most successful wireless standards in the world.  The system has been adopted in over 100 countries worldwide and there are already over 50 million DECT terminals on the market.  20 million terminals were sold in 1999 (up 52% on 1998 figures) and sales reaching 28 million are predicted for 2000.

"The main market for DECT is still voice communication, but there has been a steady increase in data products, especially for Internet access.

"As DECT has spread around the globe, so too has the Project's influence on the international scene.  ETSI EP DECT works closely with international bodies such as the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), the WAP Forum and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).  ISO standards on mobility for private networks support the DECT protocol, and in 1999 DECT was included within the WAP specification for the Internet to mobile connection as an official carrier of the Wireless Application protocol (WAP).

"Perhaps the most significant achievement of the year was in November, when the ITU accepted DECT as a member of the IMT-2000 family, one of the five terrestrial radio interface standards.

"During 1999 the DECT packet radio service (DPRS) was developed, which supports four types of frame relay service (the Ethernet, Token Ring, Internet Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol) and the serial interface V.24.  Work on the Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface will be completed in 2000.

"Work in 200 will concentrate on the development of higher bit rate mode (2 Mbit/s) within the DPRS standard, interworking with the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and further cooperation with the ITU over IMT-2000.  There is also ongoing work regarding the operation of DECT in the 'Industrial, Scientific and Medical' (ISM) frequency bands.

ETSI EP DECT continues to collaborate with a number of ETSI committees, specifically ETSI Project Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonisation Over Networks (TIPHON), ETSI TC Special Mobile Group (SMG) and ETSI Project UMTS."