Wave Issue 9038 4/8/99 Article 12-01

***Industry Applauds UWCC and North American GSM Alliance; TDMA-
GSM Interoperability Agreement to Serve 225 Million Customers
(February 16)

The North American GSM Alliance L.L.C. and the Universal Wireless
Communications Consortium (UWCC) announced an interoperability
agreement at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association
(CTIA) conference.

The TDMA-GSM interoperability agreement will provide their more
than 225 million wireless customers with access to virtually 100
percent of all coverage areas across all continents.

This cooperative effort lays the groundwork for interoperability
between GSM, TDMA and AMPS phones throughout the Americas and the
world.

In addition to giving customers access to the two largest
wireless footprints in the world, both groups are committed to
working cooperatively for the acceptance of each other's 3G
wireless RTT submissions to the ITU (W-CDMA and UWC-136). Both
groups continue to support the view that multiple 3G standards
are necessary to meet the distinct needs of customers and
operators.

One benefit of the agreement is that it will enable wireless
service providers from around the world to accelerate deployment
of next generation, high-speed wireless packet data service
features using EDGE and GPRS in both GSM and TDMA-based systems.

This understanding builds upon the cooperative agreement between
the two organizations announced in September 1998. The agreement
reflects the shared vision of both organizations of a mobile
terminal that supports both voice and data capabilities and would
allow global roaming among GSM, TDMA and AMPS.

UWCC demonstrated interoperability, using TDMA/WIN vendors and
operators on the CTIA Wireless '99 show floor. The
Interoperability Demo highlighted ease of operation, seamless
multi-band handoffs, and service transparency, along with the
highest degree of multi-vendor multi-carrier interoperability
possible today.

Groups of attendees on the Wireless '99 show floor used TDMA
handsets provided by Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola to migrate
between the various cell sites. The attendees experienced
spectrum handoffs from 850 MHz and 1900 MHz, and interoperability
between vendors Compaq, Ericsson, Hughes/Alcatel, Lucent
Technologies and Nortel Networks.

www.uwcc.org