100 Commercially Launched 3G W-CDMA Networks

Europe : Exactly four years after Japan's NTT DoCoMo became the first operator to commercially launch W-CDMA in October 2001, a further significant milestone in the development of W-CDMA was reached when the World's 100th commercial W-CDMA network entered service in October 2005.

The century of live networks was reached when Hungarian operator Pannon officially launched commercial services over its W-CDMA network in October 2005. After taking two and a half years to reach 50 live networks during the second quarter of 2004, the number of W-CDMA networks in service has accelerated considerably and it has taken less than 18 months to double that figure.

According to Devine Kofiloto, Informa Telecoms & Media's Principle Analyst "the pace of W-CDMA network roll-out might appear sluggish, but interestingly enough, it bears striking parallels to early GSM network deployment" He said "It also took 4 years for the 100th commercial GSM network to enter service, after Vodafone UK's first launch of GSM in Q4 1991"

Western Europe leads the way with a total of 50 W-CDMA networks in service this month, closely followed by Asia Pacific where there are a total of 37 functioning networks. South America is the only region to have not publicly announced plans to launch WCDMA services.

According to Informa Telecoms & Media's World Cellular Information Service, worldwide W-CDMA subscriptions reached 34.5 million at the end of September 2005 and are forecast to reach 48.9 million by year-end before breaking the landmark 50-million figure in the first quarter of 2006.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, NTT DoCoMo has been the most successful operator in growing its W-CDMA subscriber base and accounts for an impressive47% share of total W-CDMA subscriptions of 34.5 million at the end ofSeptember 2005. Hutchison, which operates W-CDMA networks in eight countries under its '3' brand, holds a further 28.6% of the total W-CDMA market.

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