As building of the third generation cellular networks has begun the operators are deploying new hardware and doing a major revision of their network plans. This gives an excellent opportunity to introduce new system enhancements and many have been proposed in various standardization bodies working on the 3G systems. Some of the enhancements would require new technical solutions at the terminal side, while some can be introduced without any standardization work. This paper discusses such downlink enhancement schemes for GSM/EDGE systems that do not require any changes at the mobile end and thus benefit both the users of the new 3G services as well as the large customer base continuing to use the services available today. © 2001 IEEE.