New alliance to accelerate UMTS TDD's as the standard for wide area wireless broadband

February 25, 2004

A new alliance was launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes to accelerate the growing success of UMTS TDD as the leading standard for delivering wide-area wireless broadband and other high-speed packet based services. The Global UMTS TDD Alliance has been founded by members of the UMTS TDD community, including both operators and vendors from around the world, and is sanctioned by the GSM Alliance. The UMTS TDD Alliance will provide a forum for members to share their learnings and set requirements for future solutions, as well as to foster the market environment for solutions based on the UMTS TDD standard.

Specific goals of the Alliance are to:

-- Create greater awareness of UMTS TDD technology as the leading standard for mobile broadband and other high-speed packet based services in the market

-- Offer a forum for information sharing among members

-- Support collaborative technology development, interoperability testing, and certification

-- Educate the market about the many successful reference cases and sensible economics of UMTS TDD deployments

-- Provide a resource for information on TDD solutions

One of the primary drivers for the creation of the alliance was the demand from operators in all stages of deployment for both technical and marketing insights from those operators that have already launched commercial networks. Among the founding members of the Global UMTS TDD Alliance are 18 operators from five continents, including: Airdata (Germany), AtlasOne (Malaysia), IPMobile (Japan), IQ Networks (Australia), Kite Networks (United States), Mobicom (Mongolia), Net2Cell (Ireland), Nextwave Telecom (US), Sentech (South Africa), Softbank BB (Japan), SonaeCom (Portugal), Aksoran (Kazakhstan), and Woosh Wireless (New Zealand).

Another key driver for forming the alliance is the growing number of vendors developing UMTS TDD network solutions, services, or devices to meet operator requirements. Vendors participating in the forum include Andrew Corporation, Axcera, Fastcomm, InCode Telecom, IPWireless, MRiC, Possio, Samsung, and UTStarcom. Also joining the group as technical advisors are Professor Masao Nakagawa and Professor Riaz Esmailzadeh from Keio University in Japan, early pioneers in the development of TD-CDMA.

Here's what some of our members have to say:

-- "As GSM was a revolution for voice services, we believe that TDD is the revolution for broadband data service," said Christian Irmler, CTO, Airdata.

-- "Now Portugal can rest assured that it is not alone on this quest for Wireless Broadband. With this Alliance, knowledge will be easily spread among those who will make this vision a reality. This is the only way to guarantee success in the development of UMTS TDD," said Rui Monteiro, Senior Product Manager, SonaeCom.

-- "Axcera is very excited to be a founding member of the UMTS TDD Alliance. We believe that the TDD version of the UMTS standard represents the most powerful and flexible architecture for the emerging wireless wide area IP networks. The Alliance is an important resource that will promote advancement, awareness, and industry collaboration to ensure that maximum benefit is derived from this superior technology," said David Neff, CEO, Axcera.

-- "The creation of this Alliance bridges the digital divide in South Africa and the African continent far more quickly than we previously envisioned," said Winston Smith, Product Manager Wireless Broadband, Sentech.

-- "We look forward to being involved in this Alliance -- not only to benefit from global experience with TDD -- but also so that our customers will enjoy multiple benefits from UMTS TDD while roaming globally," said Bob Smith, CEO, Woosh Wireless.

-- "The launch of this Alliance harnesses tremendous energy from a dynamic group of operators and vendors that have already committed to UMTS TDD," said Chris Gilbert, CEO, IPWireless.