The GSM ‘family’ added over 500 million subscribers in the year to June.
3G Americas, which represents GSM in the Americas, says 564.6 million new subs have adopted GSM or UMTS services, with almost 18 per cent of these from the Western Hemisphere. GSM/UMTS added nearly 100 million subscriptions in the Americas during this time period, more than any other technology.The new numbers give GSM more than 2.5 billion customers in total, that’s around 85 per cent of mobile customers globally. About 140m of them are 3G users. There are currently 181 UMTS operators in service across 77 countries, with 72 networks planned, in deployment, or in trial. Of these operators, 135 have enhanced service with HSDPA, with 80 additional HSDPA networks planned. Five operators across the world have launched HSUPA technology to date, and over 130 more operators plan to upgrade with HSUPA, many in the second half of 2007.
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