The number of 3G customers worldwide hits 500 million
It was around 8 years ago when the Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO launched world's first 3G network. Believe it or not, yesterday the number of 3G network customers around the globe reached 500 million.
To help you put this into perspective let's remind you that it took fixed phone networks more than a century to reach that number of subscribers while the 2G mobile networks needed a decade to reach that milestone.
Around the globe there are over 300 UMTS networks and among them there are more than 35 HSPA networks with over 200 million customers.
In other words, nearly 40% of the 3G subscribers are also able to take advantage of the much higher data transfer speeds made possible by the HSPA technology.
And while 3G reaches milestone after milestone, 4G technology's path of life has just begun - TeliaSonera launched the first commercially available LTE network a few months back and by 2012 there will be at least 40 more worldwide.
Source (via email tipster)
Reader comments
- john mundia
- 03 Feb 2010
- N7D
yeah,i recorn so,even here in Kenya we are now using the 3G network,cant wait 4 the 4G network
- Julius
- 02 Feb 2010
- Lmt
I wonder how many of those 500 million customers around the world actually DO use 3G, and are not people that have a phone that happens to have 3G technology. :-)
- Anonymous
- 01 Feb 2010
- PBR
Noticing from GSM Arena's blog that some of editors there with their names such like Kyle, Peter, Chip, Chivas or Nick, there is no doubt GSM Arena's head office is in Bangladesh!! Yep, you too slow, Sherlock!
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