Edge attracts strong market attention: News from GSA - Global Mobile Suppliers Association

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The Global Mobile Suppliers Association reports that Edge is attracting strong market attention, based on demonstrable operator and vendor support. Terminals are scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year, with triband volume production for the Americas frequencies in 2003. This was the message from the third Edge Operators' Forum, which took place in Orlando, Florida - following the highly successful Edge meeting in Cannes, at the 3GSM World Congress.

Although the initial market take-up for Edge has come predominantly from the USA, in line with the need to overcome spectrum scarcity, there is now growing evidence that other regions, including Europe and Asia Pacific, are focusing on Edge as a low-cost low-risk complement to 3G strategies.

The next meeting of the Edge Operators' Forum is scheduled alongside the GSM Association Plenary meeting, taking place this month in Rome.

GSA is a lead sponsor of the Edge Operators' Forum, with President Alan Hadden reporting on the strong vendor commitment announced in Orlando: "The Edge Operators' Forums are closed meetings, enabling operators to exchange experiences and conduct frank discussions with vendors about their requirements.

In addition to the firm commitments announced regarding terminal availability, we can also report that from 2003, there will be a wide cross-section of terminal types that incorporate Edge functionality in line with operator demand.

A number of vendors have announced plans to ship infrastructure capable of operating in all four GSM bands (850, 900, 1800, and 1900) to meet individual market needs globally.

We have already seen the availability of triband phones, working at 900/1800/1900, from a number of leading vendors, with plans announced to bring 850/1800/1900MHz phones to market in the near future.

The addition of the 900MHz band, which is also widely used for GSM networks in Europe and Asia Pacific, will follow.

This is all positive news, reinforcing the evolving and dynamic role that Edge has to play as a complementary technology to Wideband CDMA.

We estimate that 90% of operators worldwide will commit to WCDMA and Edge strategies, en route to a full evolution to 3G on a 3GPP common core network".

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