Forsk and Huawei announce that Huawei has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Forsk for 3G radio planning tools. Forsk has also been selected by Huawei as its supplier of radio planning tools for its 3G projects worldwide.

Mr Benoit Guy, Director of Sales and Marketing for Forsk said:
“We are honoured to establish such a partnership with Huawei.  Huawei and Forsk share a common approach as high-technology focussed companies and we are very happy to be supporting Huawei in its rapidly expanding worldwide 3G operations.  Atoll having achieved market leadership in the European UMTS radio planning tool market, this partnership with HuaWei represents another important step in the global market’s recognition of Atoll as the most capable solution for 3G radio network planning.  We are especially pleased to have established this relationship with a partner of Huawei’s status to further enhance Forsk’s growing position in the market in China”. 

About Forsk and Atoll:
Forsk is a software engineering company based in Toulouse, France which has specialised in the production of radio planning tools since its foundation in 1987.  Building on its 10 years experience with radio planning tools, in 1997 Forsk introduced its PC based Atoll radio planning tool for 2G network planning, bringing the advantages and efficiencies of professional application of modern software design techniques to the radio network design market.  In 2000, with Atoll 3G, Forsk introduced the world’s first commercially available 3G planning tool. In 2001, Atoll was the first radio planning software to offer 2G/3G co-planning features. In 2003, Forsk achieved market leadership in the European UMTS radio planning tool market. Today, Atoll is being used in the design of the world’s largest UMTS networks and increasingly in leading CDMA networks by its customers world-wide including major operators and equipment suppliers such as Alcatel, Huawei, Hutchison, Nortel, Vodafone, in Europe, USA, Japan, Australia, China and other countries in Asia. 

Atoll 2.3, introduced in the second quarter of 2004, maintains Forsk’s lead in this market and offers a fully scalable 2G, 2.5G and 3G radio network planning solution for GSM, TDMA, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA and UMTS technologies.  TD-SCDMA will be supported in April 2005.  Particular features of Atoll are multi-resolution predictions, optimised interference calculations, distributed computing, comprehensive co-planning features and an unrivalled implementation of Monte Carlo simulation.  Forsk’s experience in professional software engineering allows Atoll to offer greater speed of calculation and GIS display, ease of installation and use and customization capabilities based on the Atoll Software Development Kit.

About Huawei:
Established in 1988, Huawei Technologies is a private high-tech enterprise which specializes in research and development (R&D), production and marketing of communications equipment, providing customized network solutions for telecom carriers in different areas. Huawei's contracted sales in 2003 reached 3.83 billion USD, an increase of 42% year on year, among which 1.05 billion USD came from international sales. Sales in 2004 are expected to reach USD 5 billion with international sales exceeding 2 billion. Huawei's customers include China Telecom, China Mobile, China Netcom, China Unicom as well as BT, NEUF Telecom, AIS, Telefonica, SingTel, Hutchison Global Crossing, PCCW HKT, SUNDAY, Etisalat (UAE), Telemar (Brazil), Rostelecom (Russia), etc.

Huawei has now become a leading vendor in the industry. As far as market share is concerned, Huawei is currently No.1 in digital switches and next generation network (Dittberner), No. 2 in ADSL broadband and No.4 in optical network (RHK). Huawei has also become one of the few vendors in the world to provide 3G solutions.