Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) now accounts for 31 percent of the world’s wireless market, and the GSM industry is well on course for the `”early achievement” of 100 million customers during 1998, said Adriana Nugter, chairman of the GSM MoU Association, in February at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France.
Nokia Oy introduced its Intelligent Frequency Hopping (IFH) solution for GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 networks. Part of the company’s Soft Capacity concept, IFH can add about 70 percent to a network’s current capacity, said Nokia.
France Telecom Group and Deutsche Telecom AG are jointly developing a new capability to transmit signaling for international seamless roaming between European and North American GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 networks, France Telecom announced.
Northern Telecom Ltd. introduced a solution called Indirect Access, which allows GSM operators to provide integrated fixed and mobile wireless services from Nortel DMS-MSC digital switching systems, the company said.
Nokia Oy, L.M. Ericsson and Finland-based Benfon Oy have agreed to cooperate in further developing the NMT 450/900 standard, working in close cooperation with NMT operators, announced Nokia. The main enhancements to the standard will be in the areas of speech protection and improved capacity.
CMG and Digital Equipment Corp. announced that CMG’s Short Message Service Centre product has been tested at speeds of 550 short message deliveries per second during benchmark tests on Digital’s AlphaServer systems, said Digital. The company also noted that during the benchmark, CMG and Digital also developed the product combination required to achieve SMSC performance above 1,000 messages per second.
Alcatel, Schlumberger Electronic Transactions and Sweden’s Sendit AB have signed a memorandum of understanding to build what the companies say is the first wireless e-mail application based on GSM smart cards.
AirNet Communications Corp., U.S.A., received the 1998 GSM World Award for Best Technical Innovation at the GSM World Congress. The award was given for AirNet’s work in GSM infrastructure development, which resulted in a commercially available base station subsystem capable of providing concentrated capacity and distributed coverage in a low-cost tiered network architecture, the company announced.
