3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is the global collaboration of standards bodies that writes the technical specifications for mobile networks from GSM through to 5G.
What is 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)?
3GPP brings together regional telecoms standards organisations (such as ETSI in Europe) and their industry members to agree common specifications for mobile systems. A "3GPP specification" means any of the documents covering GSM (including GPRS and EDGE), W-CDMA (including HSPA), LTE (including LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro) and 5G. Because handsets and network equipment are built to these documents, devices from different makers work on networks around the world.
How it works
Work is organised into Technical Specification Groups, which draft Technical Specifications (TS) and Technical Reports (TR). Completed features are frozen into a Release so that vendors can implement a stable set of functions.