GSA Touts EDGE Commitment

GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, confirms that following recent announcements there are today 76 mobile network operators in 50 countries who have committed to deploy GSM/EDGE for enhanced capacity and delivery of 3G mobile multimedia services.

The strongest interest is seen in Asia, Europe and Latin America. The first EDGE operator in Africa, Scancom in Ghana, is also confirmed. EDGE-enabled services are commercially offered today on 14 networks globally.

Alan Hadden, President, GSA said: "Recent announcements underline that GSM/EDGE is a natural evolution for all GSM operators to grow service revenues. EDGE delivers increased network capacity for voice or data, triple data speeds and ensures the best and most consistent user experience of advanced data services, in return for only incremental investment. Many operators have confirmed plans to deploy both WCDMA and EDGE, which are fully complementary 3G systems, for operational flexibility and efficient use of CAPEX."

GSM/EDGE can be deployed by any GSM network operator for new revenue growth under its current operating license and within existing spectrum allocation in the standard cellular bands of 850, 900, 1800 or 1900 MHz.

GSA also confirms that there are at least 19 EDGE-enabled phones and PC datacards on the market today or announced, from several leading manufacturers.

Hadden concludes: "I expect every GSM operator will deploy WCDMA/EDGE wherever possible on their networks. This implies hundreds of EDGE networks over time. There are many more operators actively assessing their network evolution strategy for 3G services delivery with EDGE and WCDMA. We are discussing with them the business drivers, business cases, and technology issues in the GSM Evolution Forum, which is meeting in the coming weeks in New Delhi (April 20th) and Beijing (May 31st)."