UMTS TDD Alliance hits membership milestone

November 21, 2004

The Global UMTS TDD Alliance announced that several new operators and vendors have joined the organization, passing the 50-member milestone in less than nine months since the group's inception.

The Alliance also announced the successful conclusion of its second summit meeting, where more than 80 executives from more than 20 countries joined to discuss UMTS TDD insights, strategies, and developments. In addition, in response to the growing worldwide deployments, the Alliance formed a subcommittee to address and advance global roaming capabilities.

"The Global UMTS TDD Alliance is a dynamic and effective forum for the many operators that are deploying UMTS TDD around the world to share technical and business learnings, as well as to work with the growing list of vendors that are supporting the technology," said Liz Kerton, executive director, Global UMTS TDD Alliance. "With our membership continuing to expand, it is clear that UMTS TDD is gaining tremendous momentum around the world."

Launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes in February 2004, the Global UMTS TDD Alliance has grown to include 30 operators and 20 equipment manufacturers and vendors, a list of which can be found on the Alliance web site at www.umtstdd.org. Membership in the Alliance continues to be reserved for companies actively involved with the technology versus companies that just want to monitor the technology's progress.

Sonaecom, a Portuguese integrated communications company, hosted the second members-only Global UMTS TDD Alliance Summit in Portugal and hosted tours of their UMTS TDD cell sites and operation centers in Lisbon. Many new TDD networks were represented at the Summit, which stimulated discussions on roaming between member networks and the creation of a Roaming Subcommittee within the Alliance.

The summit also included case studies of UMTS TDD deployments from Sonaecom, Woosh Wireless (New Zealand), Maxis (Malaysia), and NextWave Telecom (US).

Multiple vendors presented their technology and product roadmaps for UMTS TDD network infrastructure and a myriad of new devices expected to become available in the near future. Member delegates participated in interactive panels that covered key topics for members, including VoIP, marketing strategies, as well as deployment strategies and learnings.

The UMTS TDD Standard for Broadband Wireless Many of the biggest trends in telecommunications and technology point to the need for a ubiquitous, very high speed, low latency, packet-based platform to provide broadband and other packet services to users at home, at work, or on the road. The first platform that meets this need and the only one with proven, real-world traction is the TDD branch of the 3G UMTS standard, UMTS TDD (also known as TD-CDMA).