US : Catapult Communications announced support for TD-SCDMA technology. TD-SCDMA has gained significant support in China where the Ministry of Information Industry has made it mandatory for all six of the major Chinese telecommunications operators to test TD-SCDMA in 2004.

"China is the world's largest cellular market and being able to provide TD-SCDMA test solutions is key to Catapult's future success in that market," said Dave Mayfield ( inset ), Catapult President and COO. "Our customers are now able to test 3G networks and equipment based on all three of the major 3G technologies: W-CDMA (UMTS), cdma2000, and TD-SCDMA." TD-SCDMA (Time Division -- Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) is a 3G radio access technology developed by the China Academy of Telecommunications Technology and Siemens AG. By using TDMA/TDD (Time Division Duplex) technology with an adaptive CDMA component, TD-SCDMA employs advanced technologies such as Smart Antenna and Joint Detection to provide
better bandwidth utilization.

About Catapult Communications
Catapult Communications is the leading supplier of advanced digital telecom test systems to global equipment manufacturers and service providers, including Lucent, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo and Nortel. The Catapult DCT2000(R) and MGTS(R) systems deliver superior high-end test solutions for hundreds of protocols and variants -- spanning 3G, VoIP, GPRS, SS7, Intelligent Network, ATM, ISDN and other network environments.