Roaming Mobile Broadband

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- A group of the world's biggest mobile phone operators - with a combined customer base of more than 500 million - said Thursday that they will work together to develop common standards and technologies for the development of mobile broadband. Operators including China Mobile Ltd (CHL), Royal KPN NV(KPN), NTT DoCoMo Inc (DCM), Orange - a subsidiary of France Telecom (FTE), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), T-Mobile - a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (DT), and Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), have established the Next Generation Mobile Networks initiative. The initiative aims to shape the development and standardization of mobile technologies that go beyond the highest-speed third-generation networks. High speed 3G networks are based on further development of second-generation GSM or CDMA technologies, the incompatible technologies mostly used in Europe and the U.S. respectively.