UMTS

UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Service) is a third generation (3G) cellular technology, which provides data speeds up to 2 Mbps making portable videophones a reality. UMTS was developed and standardized by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standard Institute) within the ITU's IMT-200 framework. The technology is optimized to allow state of the art, very high-speed multimedia services such videoconferencing, full motion video, and Internet access.
UMTS features the support of several leading telecommunications operators and manufacturers. Universal Mobile Telephone Service has attempted to create an opportunity to build a market for highly customized and user-friendly mobile access to the information society. The intention of UMTS is to create and extend the capability of today's mobile, cordless and other satellite technologies by providing more data capability, capacity, and an increased and greater range of services. This is achieved by using an innovative radio access scheme and an enhanced and ever evolving core network.
UMTS offers a wide range of tele-services and bearer services. Tele-services include services such as speech or SMS. Bearer services provide the capability for transferring information from one point to another. Universal Mobile Telephone Service also has the ability to negotiate and renegotiate the characteristics of a bearer service at a connection establishment or session and during connection or ongoing session. Both connectionless services and connection oriented services are provided for Point to Multipoint and Point to Point communication.

UMTS's bearer services features various QoS parameters for maximum transfer delay, bit error rate, and delay variations. Also offered byUMTS are data rate targets that include 144 kbits satellite and rural outdoors, 384 kbits urban outdoor and 2048 kbits indoor and low range outdoor. UMTS network services feature various QoS classes for four types of traffic such as: Streaming class which included video on demand, multimedia, and web casts, Conversational class which included voice, video gaming, and video telephony, Background class which included SMS, downloading, and email, and finally Interactive class which included network gaming, database access, and web browsing.
Universal Mobile Telephone service also boasts a VHE or Virtual Home Environment. VHE is a concept that has been developed for personal service environment portability across network boundaries and between various terminals. Personal service environment ensures that wherever the user is located or whatever network or terminal the user may be using, they are getting the same User Interface customization, personalized features, and services. UMTS ensures location based services and improved network security, making it attractive for users as well as highly efficient for them to use. 

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The Many Uses of Phone Cards

One of the best ways to keep in touch with your family, kids and employees without having to pay for a sky rocketing phone bill when the month ends is to have a phone card. Most people who have been using phone cards found out that using it for long distance calling really make sense. Phone cards have various practical uses such as:

For your kids or Employees to Stay in Touch with You
If you're the type of person that gives phone cards so that your kids or your employees can keep in touch with you, be very sure that the cards have been purchased from a trusted company. You'll find some phone cards undesirable due to their busy signals. This means that, when you call in, you will hear a recording that says the circuits are all busy at the moment and you should try to call up again later. This kind of phone cards can't do any good especially if the call is very important or urgent and you are unable to contact someone.

You want to know how your child is doing from time to time, but you are worried that he/she is unable to memorize the number of the phone card? This trouble is easy to work out. You can retain their phone cards and just recharge it every now and then so that your child can call you up anytime. If you are recharging the same phone card consistently, there is no need for your kid to memorize more than one contact number. Should you plan to do this, just see to it that the phone card has been purchased from a highly-reputable phone card company that will be around over time so that you can keep on recharging the card.

For travel
Among the most common uses of phone cards is for traveling. This will save you from paying big bucks on hotel incidentals particularly if there's a need for you to call in your office or home or any person that you want to talk to while you are on travel. Phone cards are extremely used for journey overseas.

For students
Students, especially those who are taking their college studies in another country or state, usually use phone cards to call home from their dormitories. Phone cards are advisable in case you do not have a long-distance provider. Some people choose phone cards than long distance service providers for the reason that these cards help minimize the use of phone for the month.

For home use
If you find it hard to get an excellent long distance phone service at a reasonable cost, then phone cards can surely help you out. These cards can be the answer to your needs for various reasons. With phone cards, you pay as you go so there will never be a chance that you have to pay for a gigantic long distance phone bill when the month ends. As long as you charge your long distance calls on your phone card, expect that you only have to pay for basic service. However, you have to go through the hassle of dialing first the phone card number before you can make a call.

Another downside of using phone cards is that the calls made using these cards usually give uncommon caller identification number to the call recipient. So if you are calling a person who simply does not answer the phone if they don't know the caller, make sure you inform them that you are using phone cards so your home number will not appear on their caller ID.