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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (8533)	9/8/2001 9:06:49 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

The first time vendors pissed off mobile operators. GSMA plays down threat to 3GSM, WAP Forum The GSM Association wants to exert more influence over standardization and specification issues within the industry in order to demonstrate to the investment community that wireless operators are in charge of their own destiny. "We want to give more guidance as an operators community for 3GSM," Rob Conway, CEO of the GSMA, told Global Mobile. On the eve of the GSM World Congress earlier this year, chief executives of GSM operators expressed their displeasure with having their companies' names tarnished by technical glitches that have characterized the launch of W AP and GPRS. The implication was that they were also displeased with the efforts of the W AP Forum. "Manufacturers need guidance from operators as to where the market is going," says Conway, and as a result the GSMA has extended round-table discussions beyond the realm of chief executives. "Chief technical officers need to be brought into the group," Conway believes, and over the next month he expects to see a CTO round table to "talk with each other and with the boards of operators." Likewise, Conway says that the establishment of a 3GSM-lobby group within the GSMA does not in any way challenge the position of the UMTS Forum. "The UMTS Forum represents manufacturers, regulators, 'application providers and operators," explains Conway, while the GSMA concerns itself exclusively with operator concerns. The goal of the round table would be the development of seamless global roaming of services, and to this end Conway says it would be willing to talk with everyone, including the W AP Forum, the UMTS Forum and 3GPP. In line with the GSMA's desire to achieve seamless global roaming of services, almost a year after its inaugural meeting in London last June, the Global Roaming Forum met in Dallas last week and handed over the first GAIT phase 1 TDMA/GSM roaming specifications to manufacturers. Eric Hill, the GGRF's director for interstandard roaming, believes that we 'should have products by year- end," boosted by the formalization of the membership of a number of leading handset manufacturers within the forum. 'We are also very close to agreeing on the terms of interstandard roaming agreements," Hill says, and he expects to see these rolling out in the next few months. This article first appeared in Publication: Global Mobile - 9th May 2001 Volume 8 Number 8. COMMENTS: Mobile operators' names appear to be going to be tarnished once again, as Vodafone case is showing.