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14th July 2003

US : UMTS Forum Chairman Jean-Pierre Bienaimé ( INSET ) underlined today the benefits of GSM as the foundation for Brazil's future mobile evolution towards UMTS. By committing to GSM, Bienaimé urged Brazil to become a player in the global market for mobile services that will be created by UMTS during the next decade.

Speaking at the Third GSM Brazil Congress - hosted by IBC Telecoms in Rio de Janeiro, Bienaimé stated that GSM lays the ideal foundations for evolution towards UMTS/W-CDMA in Latin America. It provides an open, fully standardised environment for operators to evolve their business based on their 2G investment. GSM is forecasted to be the region's fastest growing mobile standard in 2007 due to migration from TDMA and analogue networks. Bienaimé also highlighted that as number one market choice, GSM will provide almost full radio coverage in the Latin American region, paving the way for a dominant UMTS/W-CDMA usage.

Bienaimé stressed that Latin America is not obliged to deploy the CDMA alternative - stating that with GSM - which represents the choice of more than 70% of the global wireless market - Brazilian operators will benefit of huge economies of scale and variety of products developed for the needs of the global market. GSM will also allow operators to enter into international roaming and interoperability agreements with some 500 GSM/UMTS networks across 197 countries world-wide, thus benefiting consumers and business customers alike. "Mobile communication is a business of global nature that must be structured globally. This is the only way to ensure better products and services, at lower costs, to customers everywhere" he added.

The UMTS Forum has previously forecasted (2001) that the Brazilian market for UMTS services will be worth some US$ 6 billion annually within the next ten years - representing a quarter of all Latin American 3G operator revenues.