US : GSM / UMTS has an overwhelming global position in terms of subscribers, deployment, and services. Its success will marginalize other wide-area wireless technologies," states the Rysavy Research white paper published by 3G Americas.

Prepared by independent research consultant Peter Rysavy, Mobile Broadband - EDGE, HSPA and LTE carefully reviews the promises made on the technical features, benefits and delivery status of wireless mobile services, particularly through the GSM family of technologies -- EDGE, UMTS/HSPA and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE).

The white paper provides an extensive overview of the deployment status, technical capabilities and workings of current and future mobile wireless technologies, specifically, on EDGE, UMTS/WCDMA, HSPA, HSPA Evolution and LTE, with comparative information on alternative technologies including CDMA2000 EV-DO and WiMAX802.16e-2005. This includes an in-depth technical examination of the different wireless technologies with respect to performance and spectral efficiency. The proof points in the research, developed as a collaborative effort with consensus among the members of 3G Americas, representing operators and leading manufacturers of devices, infrastructure, chipsets, and other elements of the eco-system, fully support the strength and merits of the GSM evolution over other technologies.

"UMTS/HSPA technology and its evolution beyond 3G will compete with any and all mobile wireless technologies available today and in the near future," stated Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas. "The GSM/UMTS ecosystem, serving more than 2 billion customers, is unmatched by any other mobile wireless technology and is possibly unmatched by any other communication technology ever. The business and economic advantages of serving such an expansive customer base, coupled with the technical advancements of HSPA and LTE, provide the combination that will win over other wide-area mobile wireless technologies."

Pearson continued, "Whereas other wireless technologies show great potential on paper, UMTS has global commercial deployments providing customers mobile broadband service today."

Some of the key observations and conclusions of the Rysavy Research white paper include:

-- The 3GPP roadmap provides operators maximum flexibility in evolving
their networks through three avenues, each coexisting harmoniously with
the others: the continued evolution of GSM system capabilities, UMTS
evolution and 3GPP LTE.

-- EDGE technology has proven extremely successful and is widely deployed
on 160 GSM networks in 91 countries. Improvements to the EDGE standard
will provide the capability to more than quadruple current EDGE
throughput rates.

-- The high spectral efficiency of HSPA provides operators an efficient
high-capacity network for all services. In the longer term, UMTS/HSPA
provides for a clean migration to packet-switched voice.

-- VoIP with HSPA will eventually add to voice capacity and reduce
infrastructure costs. In the meantime, UMTS enjoys high circuit-
switched voice spectral efficiency and can combine voice and data on
the same radio channel.

-- In current deployments on 51 networks worldwide today, HSDPA users
under favorable conditions regularly experience throughput rates well
in excess of 1 Mbps that will increase with planned enhancements of
HSDPA.

-- HSUPA users under favorable conditions will experience peak achievable
rates close to 1 Mbps in the uplink when the technology is commercially
deployed in 2007.

-- Continual HSPA enhancements are planned. Beginning with enhanced
uplink performance, advanced receivers in the mobile and in the base
station, and then MIMO, these improvements will extend HSPA capability
even further.

-- The HSPA Evolution systems could match OFDM-based approaches in
spectral efficiency and peak data rates in 5+5 MHz radio allocations
through the use of equalizers and interference cancellation techniques.

-- The 3GPP LTE work item continues to make significant progress with
expected peak downlink speeds of 100 Mbps and peak uplink speeds of 50
Mbps in 20 MHz channels.

Peter Rysavy, President of Rysavy Research, stated, "Mobile WiMAX is a hot topic story at the moment. Yet, in fact, the GSM technical migration to Evolved EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE will be the compelling realization for most operators worldwide as they provide new data application services to their more than 2 billion customers." He added, "This white paper provides a detailed analysis of the various mobile wireless broadband technologies that justifies and supports this conclusion."

This white paper, Mobile Broadband- EDGE, HSPA and LTE, created collaboratively with Rysavy Research by the member organizations of 3G Americas, is available for free download at the 3G Americas' website: www.3gamericas.org.

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