As described on the ITU's website:

"One of the Radiocommunication Sector’s most important recent achievements has been the development and acceptance of the IMT-2000 global standard for cellular telephony.

"Built on the vision of a single, worldwide standard which would harmonize today’s often incompatible regional cellular systems, IMT-2000 provides a global platform on which to build so-called ‘third-generation’ services — fast data access, unified messaging and broadband multimedia in the form of exciting new interactive services.

"Work began on IMT-2000 back in 1985 under the auspices of ITU-R Study Group 8. Known initially as FPLMTS (future public land mobile telecommunication systems), the standard soon became International Mobile Telecommunications 2000, or IMT-2000, reflecting both the expected year of first implementation (the year 2000) and the fact that the standard is based around a radio-frequency allocation in the 2000 MHz band.

"Aside from offering global roaming capabilities, IMT-2000 is expected to spur the growth of new services such as mobile Internet and wireless data transmission through its ability to send and receive information at megabit data rates, a huge speed improvement on the rates supported by most of today’s second-generation digital networks. In addition, dynamic resource control techniques built into the IMT-2000 standard should greatly improve the spectrum efficiency of third-generation systems and help lower operators’ costs through increased network capacity...

As described on the ITU's website, the ITU's Radiocommunication Sector "plays a vital role in the management of the radio-frequency spectrum, a finite natural resource which is increasingly in demand due to the rapid development of new radio-based services and the enormous popularity of mobile communications technologies.

Source (as viewed on 3 December 2004)

By connecting terrestrial and satellite-based communications systems, this initiative has potential, among other things, to fill in coverage gaps in communications. Users of cellular systems based on this standard are to benefit from "seamless global roaming and anytime, anywhere access."