Handset vendors show advances in 3G services at 3GSM

February 20, 2004

At 3GSM World Congress 2004, Ericsson is demonstrating continued market progress for 3G services with interoperable and commercial 3G handsets from eight leading handset vendors. The demonstration will take place in Hall 1, next to Ericsson's Internet Café

Visitors will experience live video telephony and different kinds of streaming services as proof for the great steps taken in true WCDMA interoperability between commercial handsets and systems. The demonstration of video telephony and live streaming show the potential of new exciting services that fully leverage the capabilities of 3G and the Internet.

Steve Walker, Vice President Global Product Marketing at Sony Ericsson comments, "Sony Ericsson is committed to deliver a compelling application experience with its phones. Demonstrating live video telephony and streaming video confirms that there are attractive commercial consumer applications that will drive the uptake of services benefiting from the enhanced 3G capabilities."

"Nokia is committed to working closely with all the key vendors to further accelerate a smooth consumer experience in 3G WCDMA," said Joe Coles, Director of Product Marketing at Imaging Business Unit, Multimedia, Nokia. "We are delighted to contribute to this demonstration with our industry-leading 3G devices and showcase real-time video streaming, a key enabler for content consumption in the early phases of 3G."

"Cooperation is vital between handset manufacturers and infrastructure suppliers," said Bob Schukai, Motorola's director of global 3G business development. "In 2003, Motorola was able to successfully ship four UMTS terminals, enabling consumers to experience new services while ensuring compatibility with other handset suppliers. The Ericsson interoperability demonstration at Cannes shows Motorola's commitment to ensuring that we all work together as an industry to achieve a successful global UMTS rollout."

Byung Duck Cho, Executive Vice President of R&D Team, Samsung Electronics, said: "We are very pleased to show off our cutting edge 3G multimedia handsets harmonized with Ericsson's leading technology. We will continuously introduce innovative handsets for the European market."

"With this industry initiative we are showing the strength of standardization. This opens up the potential for new and differentiating consumer services and shows continued market progress for WCDMA" says Torbjörn Possne, Ericsson's Vice President Sales, Business Unit Systems.

Ericsson favors an open standards approach to encourage a broad selection of attractive and interoperable 3G handsets from many different handset and mobile platform vendors. This demonstration with eight handset vendors including over ten commercial handsets prove the significant steps taken in WCDMA interoperability since last year.

The growth in number of WCDMA subscriptions is gaining momentum and by the end of December 2003 there were 2.8 million subscriptions worldwide.