HONG KONG, June 25, 2001 - Industry leaders gathered to explore the opportunities challenges and implementation of 3G at Asia's largest wireless event. The 3G World Congress, the 6th annual CDMA Mobile Conference held in Hong Kong June 11 through June 15, attracted over 1,200 delegates. The sponsors of the event included industry leading players such as Agilent, CommWorks, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Kyocera, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel, Philips, Qualcomm, Samsung and ZTE. The conference was organized by the CDMA Development Group (CDG) (www.cdg.org) and Institute for International Research (IIR) (www.iir.com.hk).

This year's World Congress focused on 3G CDMA technologies, CDMA2000 as well as WCDMA, and the program was designed for all operators, whether currently using CDMA, GSM, PDC or TDMA, who have deployed or are planning to deploy 3G technologies.

William Daley, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, delivered the conference-opening keynote speech. Other keynotes were Charles Levine, president of Sprint PCS; Jim Healy, past president of the GSM Association; and Agnes Nardi, managing director of Hutchison Telecom (HK). Notable industry representatives included Fabio Leite, Project Manager IMT-2000 of the ITU; Thomas Sidenbladh, vice chair of the UMTS Forum; and Tom Wheeler, president and CEO of CTIA.

"Attendance at the conference showed that there is a great deal of excitement about 3G," said Perry LaForge, executive director for the CDG. "With three CDMA2000 networks currently commercial in Korea and nine others around the world coming online this year, 3G is alive and well."

A highlight of the conference was the signing of memoranda of understanding (MoU) for global roaming between China Unicom and thirteen CDMA operators representing nine countries worldwide. The establishment of these relationships comes on the heels of China Unicom's recent contracts with six vendors to deploy a CDMA network covering more than 15 million customers.

"We are pleased to welcome China Unicom to the CDMA community" said Perry LaForge. "This was a momentous occasion, as never before have so many CDMA carriers around the world gathered to express their commitment to offering international roaming services."

The next major CDMA industry event, the 2001 CDMA Americas Congress, will be held October 31 through November 2 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. For more information, visit www.cdma-americas.com.