GSM Association commits to HSDPA

September 29, 2005

The GSM Association's Board has reaffirmed its full commitment to an evolutionary path for 3G that has HSDPA as its natural next step and seeks to ensure further technology advances are seamless and compatible. The Board believes HSDPA will become the main access technology for 3GSM networks, while other access technologies will be limited to a complementary role.

In affirming the HSDPA technology path, Craig Ehrlich, GSM Association Chairman said: "The GSMA wants to ensure that HSDPA will be the agreed standard thereby bringing the full benefits of the GSM ecosystem from economies of scale to interoperability and roaming to the benefit of consumers and others."

HSDPA offers GSM operators, now serving 1.5 billion people worldwide, higher network speed and greater capacity, enabling them to enhance their ability to deliver broadband multimedia services.

Rob Conway, Chief Executive and GSM Association Board member, said: "With successful trials completed and commercial launches scheduled to take place within the next few months, HSDPA is gaining huge acceptance within the GSM community, generating the momentum it needs to become the global wireless standard of the future."

HSDPA is an upgrade to 3GSM (W-CDMA) technology, now in use by more than 83 live networks across 37 countries worldwide. Thanks to the support of the GSM community, 3GSM usage is now growing rapidly. In the past 12 months the number of 3GSM users worldwide has more than tripled to almost 40 million.

GSMA Board Members underlined the weight of support behind HSDPA:

"Cingular's deployment of W-CDMA with HSDPA will be the first in the world and allow us to increase network capacity for voice and give customers far higher data rates," said Bill Hague, Executive Vice President - International for Cingular Wireless. "It is the only 3G technology that offers simultaneous voice and high speed data connections, which will enable us to provide a host of innovative multimedia services for consumers and businesses. Additionally, from a global perspective, HSDPA is backward compatible with the GSM family of data technologies, giving customers the ability to use their devices to access services around the world."

"HSDPA is a major enhancement to 3G and its compatibility with existing networks makes it the most compelling choice for customers," said Frank Boulben, Executive Vice President, Brand and Consumer Marketing, Orange.

"The trial phase for Telefónica Móviles' 3G evolved services using HSDPA, the first to be tested in Spain, is well advanced. Prototypes of HSDPA terminals should be available at the end of 2005," said Ignacio Camarero, Executive Director for Operations of Telefónica Móviles España. "From mid-2006, our customers will be able to enjoy a range of new and enhanced services, including high-resolution interactive games, full motion video and music downloads with the same quality as a DVDs, and fast wireless email exchanges with documents attached."

"The high download speeds offered by HSDPA will greatly enhance a wide range of mobile services from Web browsing to video downloads. We will have commercial HSDPA networks up and running in Europe in 2006," said Matthias Schröter, Vice President Roaming & Standards, T-Mobile.

"HSDPA is the natural next step in the evolution of GSM. It will bring broadband speeds to mobile networks," said Alan Harper, Group Strategy Director of Vodafone Group.