UMTS Forum is an open cross sector and independent organization founded on 16 December 1996
in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, as a non-profit association under Swiss law with the aim to enhance the modular
3G

3G

3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...

/UMTS concept, which takes full regard of the trend of convergence of existing and future information
networks, devices and services, and the potential synergies that can be derived from such convergence.

Following successful global implementation of UMTS, focus changed to upgrades and evolution of UMTS. Currently mobile operators are implementing HSPA (High Speed Packet Access

High Speed Packet Access

High Speed Packet Access is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols, High Speed Downlink Packet Access and High Speed Uplink Packet Access , that extends and improves the performance of existing WCDMA protocols...

), which will be followed by LTE (Long Term Evolution). This change is also reflected in activities of UMTS Forum.

UMTS Forum is very active in different standardization and regulation organizations like ITU

Itu

Itu is an old and historic municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population in 2009 was 157,384 and the area is 641.68 km². The elevation is 583 m. This place name comes from the Tupi language, meaning big waterfall. Itu is linked with the highway numbered the SP-75 and are flowed...

, ETSI/3GPP

3GPP

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners...

, EC and CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations

European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations

The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations was established on June 26, 1959, as a coordinating body for European state telecommunications and postal organizations...

.

Steering Group

• Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, Chairman
• Thomas Sidenbladh, Vice Chairman
• Guillaume Lebrun
  Guillaume Lebrun
  Guillaume Lebrun is a French head chef in the Michelin starred Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin, Ireland.He was born in rural France, as son of a baker. He wanted to do something with food later in life but taking over the bakery was impossible, due to an allergy to flour. So he started...
  
  , Spectrum Aspects Group Chairman
• Cengiz Evci, Chairman Manufacturers Group
• Peter Zidar
  Peter Zidar
  Peter Zidar is currently chairman of Operators Group in UMTS Forum organization, where he is also a member of the Steering Board. He was unanimously elected for this position in March 2008....
  
  , Chairman Operators Group
• Werner Wiedermann, Vice Chairman Operators Group
• Adrian Scrase, ETSI Observer