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LTE Continues to Gain Global Leadership in New Era of Mobile Broadband Communications

Bellevue, WA July 24th, 2008 – According to 3G Americas, a wireless industry trade association, LTE continues to gain global leadership in the new era of mobile broadband communications. LTE represents a convergence of the ecosystem providing total accessibility to mobile broadband applications and continues to grow in its acceptance and preference as the future leading mobile broadband technology choice for all operators.     

The HSPA to HSPA+ roadmap provides tremendous technical enhancements and robust capabilities for wireless operators today. Many operators will choose an evolution to extend the current HSPA roadmap through HSPA+ or HSPA Evolved, a simple upgrade to today’s HSPA networks with peak theoretical downlink speeds of 28 Mbps that will be available for commercial deployment in 2009. HSPA+ delivers a smooth transition and complement to LTE, and by 2010, further developments of the technology will offer peak theoretical speeds of 42 Mbps on the downlink and 11.5 Mbps on the uplink. In addition, HSPA+ will more than double the capacity of HSPA as well as reduce latency below 50 milliseconds. Many operators such as AT&T have already announced their network strategy to evolve from HSPA to HSPA+.

“HSPA already has the leadership position in mobile broadband,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas. "Now, the mobile telecommunications world is adopting LTE as the next evolutionary technology of choice.”

LTE was recently confirmed by the Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance (NGMN). NGMN is the organization founded to evaluate candidate technologies to develop a common view of suitable solutions for the next evolution of wireless networks.

Dr. Peter Meissner, Operating Officer of NGMN announced that, “based on intensive and detailed technology evaluations, 3GPP LTE/SAE is the first technology which broadly meets its recommendations and is approved by its Board.” NGMN is ensuring the successful commercial launch of future mobile broadband networks through a roadmap for technology and friendly user trials.  Initial trial results for LTE exceed NGMN expectations and prove that future network technology will deliver on its promises.

In reference to the NGMN Alliance announcement, Michael Thelander, CEO and Founder of Signals Research Group, a US-based wireless research consultancy, stated that, “the implications could be significant, and if nothing else, eighteen of the world’s largest mobile operators have spoken …”

LTE is the next generation technology evolution that most leading operators worldwide are choosing. Announcements have been made on planned LTE deployments, LTE trials, LTE initiatives and LTE testing by leading global operators such as AT&T, China Telecom, China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Telecom Italia, T-Mobile Germany, Verizon and Vodafone indicating the strong preference of LTE as the future technology.

Nearly one billion potential subscriptions are already represented within networks by operators who have made announcements regarding LTE building tremendous scope and scale for the technology. This scalability will provide an open delivery platform for consumers as well as improve OPEX and total cost of ownership for improved network performance and investments for operators. LTE standards specifications in 3GPP Release 8 were approved in January 2008, with some trials starting in 2008, putting the technology on track for initial deployments in 2010 and beyond.

For more information on HSPA+ and LTE, visit the 3G Americas website at www.3gamericas.org where white papers are available for free download.

• 3G_America_-_LTE_Continues_to_Gain_Global_Leadership.pdf