World GSM Congress,  February 19-22, 2002,  Cannes, France

   The World GSM Congress is one of the mobile industry's most significant events. Every year in mid-February, people closely associated with the GSM business worldwide gather in Cannes, the famous resort city in France. Over the recent years the scale of the Congress has grown so much that the auditorium in the famous hall of the Cannes film festival can hold only a portion of those wishing to attend the forum. Because of this adjacent buildings are also used for various Congress activities, hotels, large and small, both in Cannes and in the neighbouring cities are fully packed.
   Such a keen interest in the Congress is only too natural given the current changes and the fast development rate of the industry. This year too the Congress was marked by its grand scale - the exhibition area of up to 25,000 sq. meters accommodated the stands of 530 companies.
   123 GSM operators function in fifty European countries. The number of subscribers increased from 169 million to 281 million in the year 2000, and reached 311 million in May 2001. As of February 2002, 620 million of the 840 million subscribers to mobile networks worldwide use the GSM system. In China alone, 90 million people (about 75% of the total number of mobile users in China) are GSM subscribers. The mobile sector is now considered the world's most rapidly growing market.*
   The Congress began with the three-day seminars dedicated to the analysis of the ongoing developments and future prospects of the industry. These seminars were intended for technical and marketing personnel. Separate seminars were held for managerial  staff.
   The awards ceremony to honor the winners of this year's GSM Association nominations, the central event of the Congress, took place on the eve of the closing day of the Congress.

Best Technological Innovation:
   The Best Mobile Phone - NTT DoCoMo (Japan) for FOMA 3G phone
   The Best Infrastructure and Network Solution - Wireless Online (USA) for ClearBeam GSM/GPRS antenna

Best Service and Service Package:
   The Best Customer Service - CodeOnline (Finland) for the quiz “Who wants to win a million?”
   The Best Customer Service Package - Network 365 (Ireland) for its “mzone” product

Best Marketing Solution:
   The Best TV Advertising - Sonera Corporation (Finland) for its IN commercial
   The Best Marketing Campaign - Orange (France) for its brand advertisement

Contribution to Public Activities:
   Developing a Special Program for the Handicapped - MTN Network (Sri Lanka) for the project “Change”
   Civic Contribution - Ericsson (Sweden) for swift and efficient aid to the victims of  natural disasters

Special Award of the GSM Association Chairman
   The Chairman of the GSM Association annually names and awards with a special prize an individual or organization for outstanding achievements.
 

   As expected, this year's prize was awarded to the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo (as mentioned above, this company was also the winner of the Best Mobile Phone nomination). DoCoMo is considered a pioneer among mobile companies in the application of 3G technologies.
   The i-mode service launched in 1999 by DoCoMo rapidly gained popularity and already in December 2001 it was used by 30 million subscribers. As a result of the introduction of the i-mode service, the company's income from data transfer amounted to 20% of the company's total income (by comparison, Vodafone Group, one of Europe's most successful companies, is projected to achieve a similar distribution of income only by 2004 or 2005).
   Many experts were skeptical about the announcement made at the 2001 Cannes Conference regarding the migration to 3G systems beginning from May 2001. This skepticism was caused by what they thought was an unrealistic date. NTT DoCoMo was only six months “late” making the world's first commercial launch of the 3G service in November that same year. The WCDMA-based new generation technology is in full compliance with the international standard IMT-2000. The new system FOMA (Freedom Of Mobile Multimedia Access), developed by the NTT DoCoMo Research Center jointly with Yokosula Research Park, became the first new generation system combining the high-speed Internet, video and music transmission and many other services.
   The service is currently available only in Japan, but it does not appear too remote for the rest of the world.
   3G is the most expensive symbol in the mobile industry.
   Major event of the Cannes Congress is the exhibition demonstrating latest innovations in mobile technologies. It is here that the companies involved in the industry announce their new accomplishments and where interested people can see and get acquainted with the most recent developments in the business.

   Motorola remained the only manufacturer of GPRS phones for quite a long time. According to the announcement made at the Congress, the company intends to launch A820, a 3G model, by the third quarter of 2002. This will allow Motorola to be the first Western company to manufacture the 3G phones, remaining in the forefront of technological advancement.

   At the Congress, Motorola announced its intention to work together with China Mobile on the research of the potential market for 3G in China and on selecting the best version of new generation networks for the country. According to the Chief of Motorola's Global Telecommunications Solutions Sector For the Chinese Market, “the development of the 3G technologies in China will greatly affect  the development of telecommunications sector as well as the country's economy as a whole.”

   Microsoft Corporation is playing an increasingly prominent role in the mobile industry's software field. In 2001 the company announced its decision to join the GSM Association. The Association has been joined also by Cisco and Psion, and earlier by IBM and Bull, traditionally considered IT sector companies. This trend once again emphasizes that the processes of convergence of wireless and wire technologies are already drawing the participation of the largest companies in the field. Last year showed that Microsoft's success in the mobile industry is not as impressive as in the software field. European companies, especially the major manufacturers of mobile phones, prefer Symbian to Microsoft at this stage. The only exception is SAMSUNG, which uses a Microsoft operational system.
   Microsoft has not lost hope, however, and plans to increase its influence by advancing SmartPhone to the PDA market. The alliance between Microsoft and American Texas Instruments increases the chances of success for such a phone.

   SAMSUNG, in conjunction with Emblaze Systems, presented a video-phone for GPRS networks. The new terminal allows the viewing of musical clips, Internet and other animated pictures by means of the Emblaze Systems' ASIC chip. The image quality changes according to the band allocated by the network operator for GPRS networks, and may be regulated by adjusting the image size on the screen.

Levan Buchukuri
General Director
MagtiCom