GSMA Announces That Global HSPA Mobile Broadband Connections Have Surpassed 400 Million

LTE Connections to Reach 300 Million by 2015

BARCELONA, Spain, February 14, 2011 - The GSMA today announced that HSPA Mobile Broadband connections have
increased by 100 percent year-on-year, passing 400 million globally,
according to figures from Wireless Intelligence. There are now more than 17
million HSPA connections being added each month around the world, compared to
nearly 9 million a month in the same period last year. LTE, the
next-generation Mobile Broadband technology, is also set to experience rapid
growth over the next few years, rising from 4.2 million connections in 24
countries by the end of this year, to almost 300 million connections in 55
countries by 2015.

"Over the past 12 months operators around the world have invested more
than $70 billion* in Mobile Broadband infrastructure and network upgrades,
driving strong momentum for HSPA and paving the way for LTE to gain real
traction," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA. "HSPA
has achieved great success since it was first deployed in 2005, and to date
is the fastest-growing wireless technology ever. 2011 is also set to be the
tipping point for LTE, with network deployments in 24 countries and the
commercial availability of the first LTE-based smartphones and tablets
driving more than four million connections."

The rapid growth of Mobile Broadband is driven by demand for the latest
devices, applications and services, and enables users to access any type of
content on the move. Mobile Broadband will also facilitate a wide variety of
socio-economic benefits, especially in countries lacking fixed-line broadband
infrastructure, which will empower education, improve health services,
increase trade and drive innovation.

LTE is set to out-perform most fixed-line broadband networks by
delivering very fast, highly responsive connectivity with peak rate speeds of
up to 100Mbps. However, for LTE to achieve the same success as HSPA,
governments need to ensure that suitable spectrum is released in a timely and
harmonised way. This will allow LTE to generate vast economies of scale,
driving down the cost of equipment and handsets. Spectrum best suited for LTE
includes the 2.5-2.6GHz band, which has been identified globally by the ITU
as the '3G extension band', and 'digital dividend' spectrum in the 700-800MHz
band, freed up from the switchover to digital television.

As operators wait for spectrum for LTE to be released, many will continue
to use HSPA as their primary Mobile Broadband technology. More than 2,900
devices from 200 suppliers support HSPA and there are now 341 live HSPA
networks across 132 countries worldwide. Moreover, HSPA is a highly capable
and cost-effective technology that can be upgraded to HSPA+, enabling peak
speeds of between 21Mbps and 42Mbps. With additional spectrum, HSPA+ can even
reach peak speeds of 84Mbps. There are currently 76 HSPA+ networks deployed
in 43 countries with a further 52 networks planned worldwide, according to
Wireless Intelligence.

The industry research firm also predicts that LTE is likely to experience
its most rapid growth from 2012, when the majority of operators launch their
networks and Voice over LTE (VoLTE) becomes available. The GSMA is leading an
industry-wide push to establish VoLTE as the unified approach to delivering
voice communications and rich services such as video telephony over LTE.
Together with Verizon, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, LG and Samsung, the GSMA
will be showing this progress at Mobile World Congress including live
demonstrations of VoLTE using LTE smartphones over demonstration networks
that leverage commercial IMS/LTE components.

"A tremendous amount of work by Verizon and its partners resulted in the
first successful VoLTE call over a commercial network last week," said Tony
Melone, chief technology officer at Verizon. "This momentum accelerates this
week with the GSMA, as we continue down the path of giving customers the best
calling experience and making VoLTE the standard for voice over LTE and a
commercial reality next year."

Momentum for VoLTE will be further demonstrated at a GSMA-backed
interoperability test event in September 2011. The event is being coordinated
by MSF, an industry body that develops test specifications for multiservice
next-generation networks, and hosted by Vodafone and China Mobile, two of the
world's largest operators, at Vodafone's test centre in Dusseldorf and China
Mobile's research laboratory in Beijing.

*Deutsche Bank's 2010 forecast on Mobile Broadband CAPEX covers spend on
technologies including HSPA/HSPA+, WCDMA and EVDO/CDMA.

About the GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications
industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's
mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile
ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers,
Internet companies, and media and entertainment organisations. The GSMA is
focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its
membership, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile
communications industry.

For more information, please visit Mobile World Live, the new online
portal for the mobile communications industry, at
www.mobileworldlive.com or the GSMA corporate website at
www.gsmworld.com.

Ben Evetts, +44-7879-614941, bevetts at webershandwick.com or press at gsm.org