SINGAPORE, May 16, 1996 -- The first CDMA World Congress, held here May 14 through 16, proved a watershed event in the commercialization of CDMA technology. Nearly 600 attendees, representing wireless equipment manufacturers and service providers from every continent, gathered to review the results of a number of carriers who have already implemented commercial CDMA service, including Hutchison Telephone Company Ltd. in Hong Kong and Shinsegi Telecomm Inc. in Korea, who attested to the benefits CDMA is providing to them as carriers and to their customers.

The conference also served as a backdrop for major announcements from some of the world's leading wireless manufacturers and service providers.

"The broad international interest, coupled with recent announcements in North America and Asia, indicates CDMA has established itself as the clear choice for next-generation digital wireless communications services," said Perry LaForge, executive director of CDMA Development Group (CDG), the conference organizer.

" In addition to AirTouch's announcement of its CDMA service inauguration in Los Angeles, scores of additional service providers participating in the Congress indicated plans for imminent commercial CDMA deployment. The first CDMA World Congress was a watershed event: 1996 will go down as the year CDMA became the global digital wireless standard."

Major announcements at the CDMA World Congress included:
AirTouch Communications announced that it had started commercial CDMA service in the Los Angeles area. Starting May 15, its customers began using its new digital cellular service, Powerband™ .

These customers will benefit from Powerband's enhanced features, improved call quality, better privacy and batteries that permit up to five hours of talk-time, or as much as 200% more than what analog phones offer today.

During the initial service introductory phase, the service area will cover approximately 3,500 square miles to include the San Fernando Valley up to Ventura, an area covering over two million people or one-third of the AirTouch geography in Los Angeles. AirTouch said it expects a rapid expansion of its commercial service to new portions of the network, covering up to 80 percent of the Los Angeles calling area by year end.

Motorola's Cellular Infrastructure Group (CIG) announced three multi-million dollar contracts for CDMA digital cellular technology. Motorola also announced that the world's first commercial CDMA cellular telephone network in Hong Kong has reached the 20,000 subscriber milestone. The contracts call for Motorola CIG to make or sell CDMA networks in China, Peru and Zambia

In addition, Motorola CIG indicated it will have sold a total of 4,000 CDMA cell sites by the end of the year.

Lucent Technologies demonstrated its CDMA wireless air interface, illustrating the convergence of the wired and wireless networks. The demonstration featured the company's 13 kilobit-per-second (kb/s) voice encoder (vocoder) in a mobile-to-mobile capability, and its eight kb/s vocoder in a mobile-to-local area network set-up. The vocoders make it possible to offer wireless voice quality that is comparable with land line voice quality.

QUALCOMM Incorporated announced that it has been awarded a contract valued at $24 million by JSC Sviazinform Chelyabinsk Region of the Russian Federation to supply CDMA digital cellular and wireless local loop infrastructure, phones, network planning and installation services.

In addition, QUALCOOMM announced the opening of three new offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea, citing the rich opportunities in Asia for CDMA wireless communications products and services.

The theme of the conference, "The Evolution of CDMA Around the World." featured speakers from Asia, South America, Europe and North America. covering issues ranging from commercial system implementations to the planned evolution of CDMA as the next generation worldwide standard.

Based upon the overwhelming response to this first ever CDMA World Congress, the CDG announced plans to continue staging the event on an annual basis, at an Asian host-country location to be determined.