COSTA MESA, Calif. July 24, 2001 - - In its semi-annual update on the global status of CDMA technology, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) (www.cdg.org) today announced that 2001 has delivered rapid subscriber growth, the commercial deployment of two additional third-generation (3G) CDMA2000 networks and expansion of worldwide roaming cooperation.

During the first quarter of 2001, CDMA subscribers reached 90 million worldwide, a 58% increase since last year. CDMA was the fastest growing technology in the Americas with nearly 60 million subscribers. The second half of the year should bring even higher growth, as Telecom New Zealand began migrating its subscriber base to CDMA services this month, and China Unicom will launch its CDMA network in October with the potential to serve 15 million subscribers.

The first half of 2001 marked the commercial deployment of two additional 3G CDMA2000 networks in Korea, by LG Telecom in April and KT Freetel in May. Today, over 400,000 subscribers from SK Telecom, LG Telecom and KT Freetel are enjoying multimedia services such as video-on-demand delivered at 144Kbps. Nine additional operators in countries representing 2.12 billion potential subscribers are set to launch 3G CDMA2000 services by year's end.

"The rapid growth of CDMA subscriber numbers is indicative of the superior voice quality, coverage and capacity offered by the technology," said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG. "The CDMA community has achieved several historic landmarks this year including the deployment of the world's second and third 3G networks in Korea. The upcoming months are also very promising as other regions of the world will soon have access to 3G services with CDMA2000."

Another highlight of 2001 was the signing of international roaming memoranda of understanding (MoU) between China Unicom and thirteen CDMA operators representing nine countries worldwide.

"The CDG and its members applaud the efforts of the global operator community for their roaming cooperation efforts. Roaming is a key area of concentration for us this year. We expect to see further advancements in this area, both for voice and data in the near term," said LaForge.