The UMTS Forum has confirmed the election of Jean-Pierre Bienaim, Director of Group Technical Support at Orange, as its new Chairman, succeeding Dr Bernd Eylert, who ends his four year term as Chairman of the Third Generation mobile industry association. The election was confirmed at the UMTS Forum's 28th General Assembly, held in Berlin on 28-30 January 2003.

UMTS Forum Chairman Dr Bernd Eylert today expressed confidence that Europes investment in Third Generation mobile phone networks will be repaid by widespread demand over the next ten years from customers for mobile Internet, voice and data services.

ITU Telecom Asia, Hong Kong: Asia Pacific will lead the world in generating revenues from wireless data services, forecasts third generation mobile industry body The UMTS Forum. The Asian region as a whole is predicted to exceed 700 million mobile data subscribers in 2010, with approximately half of these subscribers (320 million) coming from China.

Speaking at one of Latin America's biggest telecommunications industry events, "Futurecom" in Florianopolis, Brazil, UMTS Forum Chairman Dr Bernd Eylert welcomed recent confirmation by the Brazilian administration ANATEL that it plans to deploy third generation mobile services in ITU-approved "core" frequency bands, with 2x55 MHz of 3G spectrum now allocated for UMTS.

Addressing delegates at this year's UMTS Mobile Internet conference in Paris, UMTS Forum Vice Chairman Thomas Sidenbladh urged the mobile industry to remain steadfast in the face of cynicism regarding the future success of 3G.

Addressing an ITU sub-regional conference in Moscow, UMTS Forum Vice Chairman Thomas Sidenbladh urged administrations in Eastern Europe to draw on lessons learned from the licensing process of 3G in EU Member States and other Western European territories.

A new White Paper published by The UMTS Forum describes the evolutionary options for operators around the world towards Third Generation mobile systems. Available now and titled "Evolution to 3G/UMTS Services", the White Paper discusses the market vision for 3G services as well as examining the various technology migration paths for operators of current TDMA anad CDMA networks.

UMTS Forum report reveals little impact on predicted 3G business revenues by WLAN, which will in fact whet user appetite for richer and flexible 3G services

Mobile industry body The UMTS Forum has welcomed the US Administration's decision this week (22 July) to start the process to allocate 90MHz of radio spectrum for third generation mobile services.

A new report from 3G mobile industry body The UMTS Forum provides mobile operators and regulators in Central and South America with valuable information relating to the implementation of UMTS/IMT-2000 in the region.