MobileMonday Global

^{End of CDMA development path} GSM camp gains further market share

The GSM network technology family is gaining further dominance over CDMA camp. This week GSM Suppliers Association announced that GSM/UMTS/HSPA technology has achived 88.5 percent of global mobile market share. Friday Qualcomm, the main company behind CDMA and CDMA2000 technology, said that it will not be developing the Ultra Mobile Wideband UMB network technology.

UMB was supposed to the CDMA2000 answer to LTE development of GSM family.

Broadband Reports headlined the Qualcomm announcement: Ultra-Mobile-Broadband (UMB) Officially Dead.

Qualcomm introduced its UMB roadmap on March 2007 Qualcomm Offers Base Station Solution and Device Chipsets for Ultra Mobile Broadband to Start Sampling in First Quarter 2008.

Nine months ago Qualcomm was promising a chipset that would provide a developing path to LTE for both for GSM/UMTS and CDMA2000 networks. Qualcomm to Ship Industry’s First Multi-mode LTE Chipsets in 2009. New Family of Multi-mode LTE Device Solutions to Deliver Backward Compatibility to Existing UMTS and CDMA2000 Networks.

The latest issue of the GSA GSM/3G Market Update highlighted latest GSM/3G market gains: Update include:

• GSM continues to gain ground, now over 3.38 billion GSM, WCDMA-HSPA subscriptions worldwide and 88.5% of global mobile market share

• The Western Hemisphere has reached the 500 million GSM subscriptions milestone; increasing market share over the past 12 months by 7.2% to 68.8%

• BRIC countries now represent over 1.1 billion GSM subscriptions

• India posted a record 8 million GSM subscriptions gain in October 2008, and is on course to cross the historic 250 million GSM subs total by December 2008

• WCDMA has almost 70% share of commercial 3G networks

• Over 262 million WCDMA subs including HSPA worldwide, representing 102.6 million or over 64% annual growth

• Over 92% of commercial WCDMA networks have launched HSDPA

• HSPA network capabilities are rapidly evolving. Almost two-thirds of networks support 3.6 Mbps (peak) or higher; over 26% have launched 7.2 Mbps (peak) or higher

• 963 HSPA devices launched in the market by 139 suppliers, addressing all market segments

• All main frequency bands are supported, including 349 devices for the 850 MHz band and 45 devices for the 900 MHz band. There are 253 tri-band (850/1900/2100) HSDPA devices enabling global roaming

• A growing number of regulators are opening up opportunities for operators to deploy UMTS (WCDMA-HSPA) voice and mobile broadband services in the 900 MHz band (UMTS900)

• 163 HSPA devices incorporate positioning functionality to support turn-by-turn navigation services.

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