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Today, GSM technology
is in use by more than one in six of the world's population and it is
estimated that at the end of Jan 2004 there were over 1 billion GSM
subscribers across more than 200 countries of the world.
The growth of GSM continues unabated with more than 160 million new
customers in the last 12 months. Since 1997, the number of GSM subscribers
has increased by a staggering 10 fold.
The progress hasn't stopped there. Today's GSM platform is living, growing
and evolving and already offers an expanded and feature-rich 'family' of
voice and data enabling services.
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Since 1997, the number of GSM subscribers has
increased by a staggering ten-fold. GSM now accounts for more than 73 per
cent of the world’s digital wireless market and took 80 per cent of global
mobile growth in the year to December 2003.
At the time of writing, global GSM subscribers are about to smash through
the one billion mark. Let’s put this very significant milestone into
perspective. At Telecom Geneva back in 1991 GSM systems were demonstrated
to the communications fraternity for the very first time. In the course of
that event over 11,000 GSM calls were made, but out in the real world
there were still no commercial networks up and running.
In fact it was another twelve months before the GSM MoU Association – as
the GSMA used to be known – was able to report thirteen networks on air in
seven countries and territories. In 1993 GSM operators could claim a
subscriber base of 1 million customers and by June 2001 the industry was
celebrating the 500 million milestone. This is truly astonishing progress
in a single decade.
Just three years on that figure is about to double and the customer base
is set to bust through the 1 billion barrier. This means a staggering one
in six people worldwide now use GSM services.
So what does this sustained development mean in commercial terms? Well it
certainly adds up to very significant economies of scale in terms of
network infrastructure, devices and service development. But the
proliferation of GSM worldwide also confirms the presence of a strong,
versatile and enduring standard that can be relied upon to deliver a
diverse range of services anytime, anywhere.
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