Global UMTS TDD Alliance Increases Membership to More Than 40 Members in Less Than Four Months

Momentum continues to accelerate for UMTS TDD Alliance with new members, key events, and launch of online member forum

WASHINGTON, DC June 1, 2004 - The Global UMTS TDD Alliance announced today at the WCA Conference that a set of new operators and vendors, including LG Electronics, have joined the organization, increasing its roster to more than 40 operators and vendors in less than four months since the group's inception.

"In addition to bringing together our members to learn and share knowledge, one of the main goals of the Global UMTS TDD Alliance is to educate media, analysts, and the public about the benefits of UMTS TDD. A standards-based technology that is available now, UMTS TDD offers the fastest and highest capacity mobile platform in the world today, and has been commercially deployed on five continents to great subscriber response," said Derek Kerton, Director, Global UMTS TDD Alliance. "With our membership expanded to 40 leading operators and vendors, it is clear that interest in next generation wireless broadband in general and UMTS TDD in particular has never been higher."

New Members
Launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes in February 2004, the Global UMTS TDD Alliance has grown to include 25 operators and 15 equipment manufacturers and vendors.

New operators Caribbean Hub (Grenada), Cats-net (Tanzania), Cedarcom (Lebanon), Douala1 (Cameroon), EmilNet (Mozambique), Excelcomm (Indonesia), Showers (Nigeria), NGTel (Nigeria), Telecentra (Latvia) and Vimplecom (Russia) join founding members including Airdata (Germany), AtlasOne (Malaysia), IPMobile (Japan), IQ Networks (Australia), Kite Networks (US), Mobicom (Mongolia), Net2Cell (Ireland), NextWave Telecom (US), Sentech (South Africa), Softbank BB (Japan), SonaeCom/Clix (Portugal), Aksoran (Kazakhstan), and Woosh Wireless (New Zealand).

Vendors entering the Alliance include Dovado (Sweden and United Arab Emirates), Ericsson (South Africa), Kathrein Werke (Germany), LG Electronics (Korea), Landasan (Malaysia) and Wireless System Integration (Sweden). They join founding members Andrew Corporation, Axcera, Fastcomm, InCode Telecom, IPWireless, MRiC, Possio, Samsung, and UTStarcom.

Global UMTS TDD Alliance Activities
Two weeks ago more than 60 telecommunications executives from 21 countries convened in Johannesburg, South Africa for the Alliance's highly successful first-ever UMTS TDD Summit. The Summit agenda provided an opportunity for Alliance members to see Sentech's network and marketing programs and to examine the best practices of Sentech, whose MyWireless services represents one of the most advanced and successful UMTS TDD mobile broadband networks in the world today. Operators from around the world shared case studies and attended sessions on UMTS TDD marketing and deployment strategies and learn about the latest plans for future UMTS TDD network infrastructure and devices.

"Learning from each other's best practices allows the growing UMTS TDD community to continuously improve our businesses, networks, and equipment," said Christian Irmler, founder and chief technology officer, Airdata. "The dynamics among incumbent GSM operators and entrepreneurial new entrants deploying the technology created very positive, powerful synergies. The excitement, about the technology and its market-changing potential, was palpable."

At the summit, the UMTS TDD Alliance launched a members-only online forum with materials and discussion boards covering all aspects of UMTS TDD. Upcoming events for the Alliance include participation and presentation by numerous members at the WCA show this week at the WCA show and a breakfast seminar at CommunicAsia in Singapore June 16, 2004. For more information on the latter, please visit www.umtstdd.org/commASIAinvite.html.

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 variant of the 3G UMTS standard, UMTS TDD (also known as TD-CDMA). Optimized for high-speed data, UMTS TDD can be used by operators and manufacturers worldwide and has emerged as the leading standard for mobile broadband.

UMTS TDD is the best choice for provisioning ubiquitous broadband data and voice services not only because of the unmatched performance and economics of the solution, but its standards-based nature, and the growing market lead of the technology in commercial deployments in countries around the world, including Australia, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, and the United States.

About the Global UMTS TDD Alliance
Created and supported by the growing community of UMTS TDD operators, services providers, and vendors around the world, the Global UMTS TDD Alliance's goal is to provide a forum for members to share their knowledge and experience with each other and with the public, set requirements for future solutions, and foster the market environment for solutions based on the UMTS TDD standard. For more information on the Alliance, visit www.umtstdd.org.

For further press information contact:

UMTS TDD Alliance
Liz Kerton
(623) 321-6834
liz.kerton@umtstdd.org

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