The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is the standards organization that is responsible for the evolutionary planning of the 3GPP family of technologies. 3GPP creates specifications for wireless cellular technologies through working groups comprised of operators and vendors to further the development and standardization for successful global deployments of the 3GPP family of technologies and labels the final stages of development as “Releases.” 3GPP uses a system of parallel Releases to provide developers with a stable platform for implementation and to allow for the addition of new features required by the market.

Source: Transition to 4G: 3GPP Broadband Evolution to IMT-Advanced