EDGE survey

GSA announced that there are now 287 mobile network operators (+40%) in 142 countries deploying EDGE, of which 111 in Europe, 84 in Americas, 50 in MEA and 42 in APAC. 223 networks (+50%) are in commercial use in 113 countries, of which 97 in Europe, 59 in Americas, 36 in MEA and 31 in APAC. GSA also announced that 116 WCDMA operators have deployed, or are currently deploying, combined WCDMA-EDGE networks, of which 80 are in commercial use. In addition, there are over 500 EDGE-capable user handsets launched in the market. The future for EDGE is designed in EDGE Evolution or 3GPP Release 7 for completion in 2007 and commercial availability by 2009.