Exactly four years after Japan's NTT DoCoMo became the first operator to commercially launch W-CDMA in October 2001, a further significant milestone in the development of W-CDMA was reached when the World's 100th commercial W-CDMA network entered service in October 2005.
The century of live networks was reached when Hungarian operator Pannon officially launched commercial services over its W-CDMA network in October 2005. After taking two and a half years to reach 50 live networks during the second quarter of 2004, the number of W-CDMA networks in service has accelerated considerably and it has taken less than 18 months to double that figure.
According to Devine Kofiloto, Informa Telecoms & Media's Principle Analyst "the pace of W-CDMA network roll-out might appear sluggish, but interestingly enough, it bears striking parallels to early GSM network deployment" He said "It also took 4 years for the 100th commercial GSM network to enter service, after Vodafone UK's first
launch of GSM in Q4 1991."
Western Europe leads the way with a total of 50 W-CDMA networks in service this month, closely followed by Asia Pacific where there are a total of 37 functioning networks. South America is the only region to have not publicly announced plans to launch WCDMA services.
The century of live networks was reached when Hungarian operator Pannon officially launched commercial services over its W-CDMA network in October 2005. After taking two and a half years to reach 50 live networks during the second quarter of 2004, the number of W-CDMA networks in service has accelerated considerably and it has taken less than 18 months to double that figure.
According to Devine Kofiloto, Informa Telecoms & Media's Principle Analyst "the pace of W-CDMA network roll-out might appear sluggish, but interestingly enough, it bears striking parallels to early GSM network deployment" He said "It also took 4 years for the 100th commercial GSM network to enter service, after Vodafone UK's first
launch of GSM in Q4 1991."
Western Europe leads the way with a total of 50 W-CDMA networks in service this month, closely followed by Asia Pacific where there are a total of 37 functioning networks. South America is the only region to have not publicly announced plans to launch WCDMA services.