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Ericsson makes it all work together

April 14, 2004

A rich choice of handsets and services from different suppliers is obviously key for mass-market acceptance of 3G. But to network operators, the lack of handset interoperability is a constraint. Demonstrating services with compatible handsets from many vendors, Ericsson has shown that this is no longer a fact.

Ericsson is leading the industry push for true interoperability in networks, services and handsets. The most immediate goal has been to ensure operators that they have ample supplies of handsets available for their 3G-launches.

 

To prove this, a unique demonstration hosted by Ericsson was staged at the annual 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France. Visitors could try out live person-to-person video calls, video conferencing with multiple parties, and video between mobile and PC.

 

It worked equally well with more than ten different commercial handsets from eight vendors including Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Sanyo.

 

"This industry initiative shows the strength of standardization," said Torbjörn Possne, Vice President Sales at Ericsson's Business Unit Systems. "It opens up the potential for new and differentiating consumer services and shows continued market progress for WCDMA."

 

The demonstration in Cannes also showed the capability of products such as Ericsson Video Gateway and Ericsson Content Delivery Solution. One popular feature was content streaming to a mobile phone, carrying news from a Chinese TV channel. Ericsson representatives said this demonstration had a definite "wow-factor". Visitors were heard to ask: "Oh, can I really call up television real time from China?"

 

Live video streaming is an example of the kind of attractive commercial consumer applications that is expected to drive the uptake of services, especially for content consumption in the early phases of 3G.

 

In a keynote speech, Torbjörn Possne told the congress of the lessons learned from the early stages of 3G rollout. "We have made quite an advancement since last year," he said. "But standardization is not enough; we must constantly keep an eye on the networks and tune them together with the applications, end to end, so that they work just as well in 3G networks as in 2G."

 

Proving his point that it is equally important to master network technology, mobiles and services in one context in order to deliver what operators and consumers wants, Possne went on to highlight the vast range of 3G mobiles that are now available and the work vendors have done to ensure multi-vendor compatibility.

 

This work is reflected in the fast growing customer base: 15,000 new WCDMA customers are added each day. Thirteen WCDMA networks have to date been launched commercially, nine of which are supplied by Ericsson, and now serve more than 3 million users.

 

According to the GSM Association, 2004 will be the year that WCDMA accelerates and with the number of launched networks globally growing to around 40.

 

No other mobile technology has as many different suppliers of hardware and software as GSM and its 3G evolution WCDMA. This means more competition, more choices and larger volumes, keeping prices down for the customers. At the same time it means high demands on the vendors to ensure interoperability, which is a complex task. Ericsson has a long tradition of promoting open standards and focussed early on 3G interoperability testing. Today the company has an unrivalled industry-leading experience in making equipment and services from different vendors work together in 2G as well as 3G.