Hannover, ----DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) has established itself as a global standard approved by more than 120 countries as of March 2,000. This has been reported today by the DECT-Forum, an international non-profit organization of 42 leading telecom manufacturers and operators at CeBIT in Hannover.

The Forum promotes the standard and product applications world-wide. It predicts that DECT will break all records. Sales of terminals have risen from 0.4million in 1994 to over 50 million terminals by the year 2000. This combined with acceptance in more than 120 countries makes it the most successful digital cordless standard in the world. Presently DECT is the most successful digital standard for cordless telecommunications worldwide.

DECT is here and now, but tomorrow has already begun: DECT provides cordless access to ISDN, the Internet and multimedia applications. The DECT Forum has proven to be the trendsetter for the evolution of DECT.

DECT standards are the most advanced enabling the implementation of all kinds of different services (voice, fax, data, and multimedia) and ensuring the greatest interoperability through the appropriate DECT profiles. A profile is a selection of specified set of functions and features necessary to be implemented to enable handsets and infrastructure from different vendors may work together in the world of wireless technologies.

Superb voice quality, secure communications and an ample set of features have become synonymous for the outstanding range of DECT telephones which leads to the high level of acceptance for residential use. Today, a broad spectrum of very economical DECT telephones to connect to the for PSTN and/or ISDN network connections are available, . Products range from ranging from digital cordless telephones to fully featured systems including answering machines, handsets with menu driven user interfaces or cordless terminal adapters.

DECT has become the preferred world standard for Business cordless applications and is deployed at more than 50,000 business sites. More than 1.0 million business users enjoy the wide choice of DECT applications in different types and sizes of businesses providing superior performance in terms of voice quality, traffic capacity and communication security. An excellent example of such a high user density application is the DECT wireless PBX covering the whole here at CeBIT, where the entire fair ground has been covered by DECT Business Cordless Systems.

DECT systems have a remarkable success in the Wireless Local Loop (WLL) market as the leading technology. It achieved over 31% of world-wide market share of new contracts awarded in 2000. This impressive figure has been reached thanks to DECT WLL systems flexibility of the systems offered, superior performances in terms of robustness, voice quality, traffic capacity and communication security, and complemented completed by an obvious cost advantage derived from a mature technology widely accepted and deployed.

DECT Forum is an international non-profit organization which was formed in early 1997 by merging the former associations ""Global DECT FORUM" and "DECT Operators Group". The presently 42 members include major manufacturers and suppliers of DECT-based communication systems as well as telecom network operators around the world. Aim of the DECT Forum is to promote DECT as a global standard and serve as a platform for the exchange of marketing and technical information and practical field experience.

For further information please contact the DECT Forum press agent

Thomas Fuchs, Fleishman-Hillard
Hanauer Landstraße 182c
D-60314 Frankfurt/Main