US: New GSA survey confirms 64 WCDMA networks and 43 EDGE-enabled networks in commercial service

Results from the latest survey by GSA Global mobile Suppliers Association, show that the GSM family continues to be the de-facto standard for operators upgrading their networks for voice and enhanced mobile data services. Service providers across the Americas, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Middle East have all deployed high-speed mobile networks based on WCDMA and EDGE open standards.

GSA confirms that there are 64 WCDMA networks in commercial service in 31 countries, delivering 3G services to over 16.26 million* subscribers at 31 December 2004 (2.68 million* at end 2003). A further 9 networks are close to service launch and at "pre-commercial" stage. This confirms that 56 per cent of the 129 WCDMA license holders in 43 countries have already launched, or are close to launching, their services.

GSA also reports the continuing globalization of EDGE and confirms that 123 GSM/GPRS operators in 72 countries have committed to the EDGE upgrade, equivalent to more than half of the number of commercial GPRS networks globally. A total of 43 networks in 32 countries have launched commercial EDGE-enabled services. WCDMA and EDGE are complementary technologies ensuring lower capital expense and optimum flexibility and efficiencies. An increasing number of GSM operators are delivering 3G services on a combined WCDMA/EDGE network.

The wide variety of WCDMA and EDGE devices and increasing availability in commercial volumes from several manufacturers is a major factor supporting accelerating 3G deployments and service offerings. Related research by GSA identifies 108 WCDMA devices and 62 EDGE-enabled devices are shipping or announced in the market today, serving all market segments.

Alan Hadden, President, GSA, said, "This latest survey underlines the continuing success of the GSM family and its evolution to 3G. WCDMA is the most widely accepted 3G/IMT-2000 technology globally. WCDMA and EDGE are mature technologies ensuring that operators are competitive and can re-use their GSM core network and services."

64 Commercial WCDMA Networks - January 2005 (Source: GSA)
This chart may be used providing GSA is referenced as the source

WCDMA devices growth - January 6, 2005 (Source: GSA)
This chart may be used providing GSA is referenced as the source

* WCDMA subscriber numbers provided by EMC www.emc-database.com

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GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, represents leading GSM/3G suppliers world-wide, with over 80% of GSM/3G market share globally. The GSA Executive Committee comprises the leading GSM/EDGE/WCDMA suppliers - Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Nokia and Siemens.

WCDMA and EDGE
WCDMA is the most widely-accepted 3G/IMT-2000 technology globally and offers lower operating costs and higher capacity than earlier networks. WCDMA uses new IMT-2000 spectrum with a 5MHz carrier, providing 50 times higher data rates than in current GSM networks and 10 times higher than in GPRS networks. WCDMA handles up to 2 Mbps for local area access or 384 Kbps for wide area access. An enhancement to WCDMA known as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) will boost capacity and peak data speeds to 10.7 Mbps, and is expected to be commercially deployed from 2H 2005. All WCDMA operators are expected to deploy HSDPA, requiring a software upgrade for base stations.

EDGE is an upgrade to GPRS networks, tripling data speeds to around 120-160 kbps for a better end-user 3G services experience. WCDMA and EDGE are complementary technologies, with most GSM operators offering mobile services on a dual-mode EDGE/WCDMA network.