Users of GSM mobile telephone systems grow to more than one billion

PARIS (AFP) Feb 24, 2004
More than a billion people around the world are now using the GSM mobile telephone protocol, a professional association said Tuesday at a telecommunications conference in Cannes, southern France.

Twelve years after the launch of the first GSM -- global system for mobile communication -- networks, the protocol has been adopted by more than 200 countries, the GSM Association said.

It added that GSM now represents about 80 percent of all mobile telephone communication operations.

The one billion figure, a sixth of the world's population, was expected to have been reached in March but was actually achieved in early February.

SPACE.WIRE