At the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) President and CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg today gave his views on the evolution of the telecommunications industry. "Most 3G networks will be upgraded with HSDPA in 2006, and 3G is now a mass market in steady growth. Information Management Service and all-IP is the next step to fully leverage the opportunities with mobile broadband. IMS will play an equally important role for the creation of multimedia services as HSDPA plays for the speed in the network."

"WCDMA now serves 50 million subscribers, and that number is growing steadily. It is the obvious choice for 3G," said Svanberg.

He underlined that HSDPA marks a significant milestone in the industry.

"If GSM was the beginning of a mass market for mobile telephony, HSDPA marks the beginning of a mass market for high-speed mobile broadband."

Svanberg said the evolution towards all-IP is the next technology step in the telecom world. "While HSDPA takes the access network to a new level, IMS and eventually all-IP will take the core network to a new level. The importance of IMS will become even more evident during 2006, when we are accelerating the rollout of services beyond voice and we start to really tap the potential of HSDPA."

Svanberg also addressed the WCDMA Long Term Evolution towards "Super 3G."

"HSDPA is cutting edge and already has global presence and the necessary economies of scale. And it offers a future-proof evolution path - the standardization of 'Super-3G' is already ongoing."