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Latin America Moves to UMTS/HSPA Mobile Broadband Service
| Source: 3G Americas
BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwire - July 26, 2007) - 3G Americas, a wireless trade organization
representing the GSM family of technologies, applauds the launch of mobile
broadband service based on UMTS/HSDPA technology in several countries
throughout Latin America. UMTS/HSPA (HSDPA+HSUPA) is the natural evolution
to 3G for GSM, the world's most popular wireless technology with more than
2.5 billion subscribers today. In the past few weeks, operators Personal
and Movistar in Argentina, Movistar in Mexico as well as Movistar and Ancel
in Uruguay have all launched UMTS/HSDPA commercial service in their
respective markets in Latin America. In addition to the operators listed
above, in the past seven months, UMTS/HSDPA has been launched by AT&T in
Puerto Rico and Entel PCS in Chile, making a total of seven operators that
offer UMTS/HSDPA in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas, stated, "UMTS/HSDPA technology
will provide true mobile broadband to customers, and is now being made
available in major cities and countries throughout Latin America." He
continued, "UMTS/HSDPA converges mobility and high speed wireless data
throughput, and will enable new applications as well as enhance customer
experience for all data services."
The number of operator
deployments of HSDPA has increased by 200% in the last year, from 42
HSDPA networks to 130 commercial HSDPA networks today in 61 countries.
Today, there are 177 total deployments of UMTS technology in 74 countries
and nearly 300 commercial HSDPA devices available worldwide. Informa
Telecoms & Media estimates that there will be 190 million UMTS or HSDPA
customers worldwide by the end of 2007.
Latin America has become one of the worlds' fastest-growing regions for GSM
wireless service, as many operators have migrated their networks from other
technologies (such as CDMA and TDMA) to the GSM evolution to take advantage
of the tremendous scope and scale, as well as technology benefits, offered
by EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA. There are an estimated 255 million GSM
subscribers in Latin America and the Caribbean as of June 30, 2007,
representing a 75% share of market. In addition, many operators in the
region have deployed EDGE high speed wireless data services; in fact, there
are 38 commercial EDGE networks in 21 countries today.
Erasmo Rojas, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean for 3G Americas,
commented, "EDGE delivers an excellent customer experience for wireless
data, serving as a foundation for customer uptake of wireless data services
and increasing revenues for all GSM operators. The next move is to
UMTS/HSDPA mobile broadband. We expect many more launches of HSDPA in 2007
and 2008 throughout Latin America and the Caribbean."
As GSM customers push for speed and applications to satisfy their demands
for services such as web browsing, email, mobile payments, interactive
gaming and video sharing, UMTS/HSDPA provides the solution with average
downlink throughput data rates over 1 Mbps in favorable conditions and
latency measuring at 70-100 milliseconds.
Many more operators throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are planning
their move to mobile broadband with HSDPA. Rojas continued, "However, some
carriers need additional spectrum allocations before UMTS/HSDPA networks
can be launched."
For more information on UMTS/HSPA, visit the 3G Americas website (www.3gamericas.org) to
download a free white paper entitled "UMTS
Evolution from 3GPP Release 7 to Release 8: HSPA and SAE/LTE."
About 3G Americas: Unifying the Americas Through Wireless Technology
The mission of 3G Americas is to promote and facilitate the seamless
deployment throughout the Americas of GSM and its evolution to 3G and
beyond. The organization fully supports the Third Generation (3G)
technology migration strategy to EDGE and UMTS/HSPA adopted by many
operators in the Americas. The GSM family of technologies accounts for 85%
of wireless mobile customers worldwide. 3G Americas is headquartered in
Bellevue, WA with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas,
TX. For more information, visit our website at www.3gamericas.org.
About Informa Telecoms & Media
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