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100 Commercial W-CDMA Networks

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.

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