Wireless Carriers Create 4G Initiative

A group of seven wireless operators from around the world have banded
together to create what it's calling "a coherent vision for
technology evolution beyond 3G."

The group is composed primarily of GSM carriers from the United States,
Europe and Far East, with a lone CDMA odd man out: Sprint Nextel. The
group also extended an invitation to just about any company involved in
the wireless business to join, either as a "member" or
"participant."

The group, which calls itself the Next Generation Mobile Networks
(NGMN) Initiative and which formally incorporated in the U.K. as NGMN
Ltd., includes China Mobile, KPN, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Sprint Nextel,
T-Mobile and Vodafone. In a statement announcing its existence, the
NGMN says its goal is to develop technology beyond current HSPA and
EV-DO. The group "will work alongside existing standards bodies"
and "will seek to shape the development and standardization of the
next generation of mobile technologies."

Thomas Geitner, Vodafone's CEO for new businesses & innovation, was
named chairman of NGMN Ltd., at least for now. "As major players
within the industry and heavy consumers of mobile broadband
infrastructure, we believe that the future of mobile networks should be
determined by a mix of technical and performance standards," Geitner
says. "We are convinced that, by drawing on our combined experience
and commercial insight as operators, we will be able to bring a whole
new perspective to the debate and continue to ensure that we give our
customers exactly what they want."

"The aim of NGMN is to provide an evolutionary path for the next
generation of mobile networks beyond HSPA and EVDO," the NGMN added,
explaining the reason for its existence on a website that the group has
established. It continued, "Delivering this next generation
technology is likely to require the cooperation of the entire mobile
ecosystem including operators, infrastructure providers, chip set and
device manufacturers, universities, research institutions and various
regulatory bodies."

As for just what technology the NGMN companies expect will form the
basis of their future generation, the group is surprisingly specific:
"The target architecture defined by these recommendations will be an
optimized Packet Switched (PS) network architecture, which will provide
a smooth migration of existing 2G and 3G networks towards an IP network
with improved cost competitiveness and broadband performance."

There was no discussion of how the group's goals mesh, or perhaps
don't, with Sprint Nextel's recent announcement that it is going to
used mobile WiMAX to build its 4G network.

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