Barcelona – China Telecom, KDDI and Verizon Wireless have gained membership to the GSMA following their commitment to deploy commercial services based on Long-Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation wireless technology for Mobile Broadband. China Telecom, KDDI, and Verizon Wireless, three of the world’s largest CDMA operators will begin the commercial deployments of LTE as early as 2010, according to the GSMA. LTE, when combined with the expansive footprint of these operators’ existing mobile broadband services, will deliver high-speed services to more than 150 million customers over the next three years. Qualcomm has also joined the GSMA as an associate member and will work with the operators to aid the smooth integration of LTE with existing mobile broadband technologies. “As the largest state-owned operator in China, China Telecom is very excited to join the GSMA, which will enable us to extend our reach and network across the global mobile ecosystem,” said Cao Lei, director of technology, China Telecom. “The growing demand for broader bandwidth and richer multimedia applications drove us to move towards LTE. We look forward to deploying LTE by the end of 2012 and the benefits a global ecosystem for mobile broadband will provide,” said Tadashi Onodera, president and chairman, KDDI. LTE is expected to experience substantial growth over the next three years with research firm Infonetics predicting the number of global LTE connections to exceed 72 million by 2013.